Cooperation and Defection in the East African Community

This paper looks at the role of regime types and political leadership in influencing regional integration in the East African Community ( EAC ). Although the EAC is one of the most highly integrated Regional Economic Communities in Africa, and there are many instances where member states cooperate with decisions made at the EAC level to strengthen integration, in other instances members choose to defect from regional commitments. The study used secondary data sources to determine why this is so and employed game theory to understand the game of cooperation and defection among the players, who are the member states of the EAC . Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania were selected as case studies because they are the founding members of the EAC and are assumed to be most invested in deeper cooperation within the EAC . The study found that member states make conscious, calculated decisions to cooperate or defect on specific issues after gauging the costs and payouts associated with each action.