The cynicism of borderless Africa: structural conditions, integration ambition and the politics of aspiration

The idea of a borderless Africa has become a central pillar of contemporary continental policy, reflected in Agenda 2063, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), and the African Union Free Movement Protocol. The vision assumes that reducing barriers to the movement of goods, capital and people will deepen integration, expand intra-African trade and promote shared development. This article argues that the concept rests on a contradiction between its normative ambition and the structural political economy of Africa. Drawing on the structural political economy tradition and the economic geography literature, it shows that African economies, characterised by large disparities in productive capacity, limited industrial diversification and outward-orientated trade structures, lack the conditions required for barrier removal to generate convergence. Under such conditions, integration tends to concentrate economic activity in stronger regional economies rather than produce balanced continental development. The resulting distributional pressures generate political resistance, leading to selective and inconsistent implementation of integration commitments. The article develops the concept of structural cynicism to explain this pattern.