Regionalism and Regions: East Africa Integration or Disintegration?

Does regionalism succeed in regions where there is turmoil and disorder? Neo Functionalists like Jean Monette largely agree that chaotic areas with a tremendous deficit in democracy can not integrate economically politically and socially because freedoms and individual State non-interference are the foundations for the formation of a supranational body at the regional level. Their case study was largely the EU and therefore Euro-Centric. That where democracy and freedoms are found to be scarce the 'Thesis' and prognosis is simply 'non-integration' in such a region. Do the current empirical studies support the same view? This is the question the real elephant in the room!