Ghana in Search of Regional Integration Agenda 68 Introduction One of the most interesting developments in contemporary international relations is the trend toward regionalism and regional integration. There seems to be a common consensus today that a functioning international system requires a high degree of integration, and is most effective if it is undergirded by a supporting community structure. The community approach to international sub-systems was given very high academic exposition in the 1950s and the 1960s by scholars such as Karl W. Deutsch, Amitai Etzioni, Ernst Haas, and David Mitrany. Most of these scholars believed that the formation of transnational structures is key to rapid economic development as well as ensuring peace and stability of the international system. Indeed, in 1949, Walter Lippmann predicted that“the true constituent members of the international order of the future are communities of states.” 86 This chapter seeks to throw more light on the theory and practice of integration. It is in three parts. Part one discusses the theory of integration; part two analyses the problems and prospects associated with integration in Africa. The last segment is devoted to the involvement of the socio-economic partners of integration in Ghana – the ordinary citizens. I Various approaches to regionalism and/or integration have been proposed. To many scholars, especially before the post-War years, regionalism involved political actors coming together for a common good of their respective societies in a collective effort. Thus, Ernst Haas defines integration as a “process whereby political actors in several distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations, and political activities toward a new centre, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states.” 87 Leon Lindberg also conceives integration as “the process whereby nations forego the desire and ability to conduct foreign and key domestic policies independently of each other, seeking instead to make joint decisions or to delegate the decision-making process to a new central organ”. 88 86 Unpublished address on“The Atlantic community” Philadelphia, May 6, 1949, quoted in Palmer, Norman D and Howard Perkins, International Relations, Third edition, Delhi, AITBS Pub. 2004, p.558. 87 Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation State, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1964, p49 88 Leon N. Lindberg, The Political Dynamics of European Economic Integration, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1963, p6. Quoted in Dougherty J.E and Robert Pfaltzgraff, Contending Theories of International Relations, New York, Harper Collins Publishers, p433.