The Structural Power of the European Union in West African Regional Trade Architecture: A Critical Political Economy Analysis

This doctoral study employs a Critical Political Economy framework to theorise and empirically analyse the structural power exercised by the European Union in shaping West African regional trade architecture, with particular focus on how EU structural power has influenced the ECOWAS EPA negotiation process and shaped the regional trade governance environment in which Nigeria operates. Building on Susan Strange's structural power theory and neo-Gramscian hegemony frameworks, the study develops an original analytical model of EU structural power in the West African trade context, distinguishing between financial, productive, security, and knowledge dimensions of EU structural influence. Empirical analysis draws on a comprehensive archival dataset of ECOWAS-EU EPA negotiation documents (2003-2024), quantitative analysis of EU-ECOWAS trade flow dependencies, and in-depth elite interviews with former ECOWAS and Nigerian trade negotiators. The study tests whether observable outcomes of EPA negotiations, including disputed tariff schedules, intellectual property provisions, and non-trade issue linkages, are more parsimoniously explained by EU structural power dynamics than by alternative liberal bargaining models. Original contributions include the development of a Structural Power Index for EU-West Africa relations and a theoretically grounded periodisation of EU structural power deployment across three phases of EPA negotiations. Keywords: EU structural power, West African trade, EPA, Critical Political Economy, ECOWAS.