Regionalism

12 Key excerpts on "Regionalism"

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  The Political Economy of Regionalism in East Asia

  Integrative Explanation for Dynamics and Challenges

  • H. Yoshimatsu(Author)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  Before examining theoretical perspectives on Regionalism, this chapter starts with the definition of key concepts. Key concepts regarding Regionalism Regionalism is an elusive concept, which has been defined in various ways. It can be broadly defined as regional attempts at mutual gains 6 Explaining Regionalism in East Asia: Theoretical Perspectives 7 shaped by both state and non-state actors. This tradition is represented by two definitions of Regionalism: 'the political structures that both reflect and shape the strategies of governments, business corporations, and a variety of non-governmental organizations and social movements' (Katzenstein 2002, p. 105); and 'cooperation among governments or non-government organizations in three or more geographically proxi- mate and interdependent countries for the pursuit of mutual gain in one or more issue-areas' (Alagappa 1995, p. 362). The narrow definition stresses the element of a predetermined plan of national governments. This tradition is typically exemplified by several definitions: the 'state- led projects of cooperation that emerge as a result of intergovernmental dialogues and treaties' (Breslin, Higgott and Rosamond 2002, p. 13) or 'the construction of intergovernmental collaboration on a geographi- cally restricted basis' (Ravenhill 2001, pp. 6-7). The narrow definition of Regionalism gives emphasis to 'political' aspects where government poli- cies and formal institutions lead the development of interdependence and cohesion within a given geographical area. This feature becomes clearer in comparison with 'regionalisation', which refers to less con- scious and undirected processes that 'come from markets, from private trade and investment flows, and from the policies and decisions of companies' (Hurrell 1995, p. 39). The distinction between regional cooperation and regional integration is also noteworthy.

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  Regional Cooperation in South Asia and Southeast Asia

  • Kripa Sridharan(Author)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • ISEAS Publishing

    (Publisher)

  1 Introduction: Why Regionalism? Regionalism, or more broadly regional cooperation, has been in vogue since the end of World War II as a mechanism for maintaining regional order. In very simple terms, Regionalism refers to cooperation between states occupying a common regional space. The form of cooperation may be either inter-governmental, grounded in the principle of sovereign autonomy, or it may be supranational where there is an authority structure that transcends state sovereignty. Regionalism, in terms of form or substance, may not have produced uniform results across the world but it has been fairly popular as a forum for engagement and interaction between proximate states belonging to a region. Scholarly preoccupation with regional cooperation, however, has been less consistent. A great deal of interest was apparent in the 1950s and 1960s. But this began dwindling in the 1970s despite the expansion in the number of regional initiatives on the ground. The early 1990s witnessed a pronounced increase in regional trading arrangements. This period coincided with the deepening of the European integration project. 1 Whatever the motivations or the nature of regional initiatives, these two developments confirmed the primacy of regions in the calculations of states, a calculation which has continued to grow strong. Therefore, the assertion that Regionalism 2 Regional Cooperation in South Asia and Southeast Asia remains the “central concept for organising world politics” 2 is not really far off the mark. It would also not be an exaggeration to say that state identities have been acquiring a regional hue in spite of the pulls of nationalism on the one hand and globalism 3 on the other. Globalism implies universalism and a compelling boundary-blind logic whereas Regionalism is more cognizant of discontinuities.

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  The Theoretical and Practical Dimensions of Regionalism in East Asia

  • Karolina Klecha-Tylec(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  It is usually adopted in countries which attempt to mitigate threats 32 K. KLECHA-TYLEC resulting from the volatility of international financial and monetary markets (leading to financial and monetary crises) as well as countries which are not inclined, for various reasons, to strengthen conventional integration processes. This type of Regionalism is developed in East Asia. The development of an integrated political community, on the other hand, is reflected in political Regionalism. This phenomenon consists in developing an international network of political cooperation, coordinating and strengthening common policies and undertakings, sharing political targets set by regional political leaders, and establishing and strengthen- ing regional institutions aimed to rule common political space created by member states. The European Union represents the most advanced form of political Regionalism in the international system. When Regionalism results from diplomatic activities, it is referred to as summitry Regionalism. Another type of Regionalism is security Regionalism. Generally, this phe- nomenon indicates an increasing engagement of regional military powers in adopting common security policies aimed to maintain peace in the entire region. This process is based on non-aggression pacts, partner alliances and other forms of cooperation in the area of security. Therefore, this type of Regionalism also has a political dimension. Regional security agreements can lead to increased stability and mutual trust in national communities, being a prerequisite for developing economic Regionalism. However, com- peting security agreements can lead to the opposite effect—rivalry among economic and political blocks, as was the case of Cold War conditions (Dent 2008). It should be noted that the contemporary understanding of security—mainly due to the terrorist attacks of September 11—is much broader than in the past.

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  The Economic Factor in International Relations

  A Brief Introduction

  • Spyros Economides, Peter Wilson(Authors)
  • 2001(Publication Date)
  • I.B. Tauris

    (Publisher)

  There is an overwhelming inclination towards, if not fascination with the extremely broad trend loosely termed globalisation and thus there is considerable debate as to how Regionalism and globalisation co-exist, both in theory and in practice. Is Regionalism, for example, a fragmentary process disruptive to further globalisation? Or does it constitute a stepping stone on the path of globalisation, especially in the field of trade? Are regional economic groupings building blocks in or stumbling blocks to the process of globalisation? Any discussion of Regionalism is therefore multi-dimensional and incorporates debates on the increasingly blurred dividing line between high and low politics in the international sphere. It also involves concerns with the evolution in the nature of state security and of potentially dramatic changes in the global economic system. But the issue of Regionalism generates multi-dimensional discussion primarily because there are multiple definitions of the term. As a phenomenon it takes a variety of forms. It differs from arrangement to arrangement. It thus has varied effects on the global trading order and its political management. 162 The Economic Factor in International Relations Definitions The term Regionalism is commonly used to describe any number of arrangements and groupings that are simply ‘less than global’. Andrew Hurrell provides us with a five-fold typology with which we can examine the phenomenon. 1 Firstly, there is regionalisation, which is often referred to as ‘soft’ or ‘informal’ Regionalism. This relates to autonomous economic processes – and not conscious state policies – that lead to economic interdependence or integration in a particular area, often with immense social implications. The extremely close human and economic links that have evolved between Mexico and California constitutes a particularly good example of this phenomenon. 2 Secondly, there is regional awareness and identity.

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  The Chinese Constitution of Central Asia

  Regions and Intertwined Actors in International Relations

  • N. Godehardt(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The comparison between old and new Regionalism underscores that the various theories in fact build on each other, rather than betraying categorical and deep differences. Old and new Regionalism are, hence, not incommensurable paradigms. I concur with Alex Warleigh-Lack that, ‘the theoretical salience of these differences is far less than has generally been assumed’ (2006, 752). It is, therefore, important to combine the different perspectives and developments of regional politics with the approaches of IR studies. Elsewhere, Warleigh-Lack highlights that ‘new Regionalism scholars’ pursue a ‘more complex understanding of interdisciplinarity’, and have particularly widened their horizons as they are no longer only focusing on the study of the EU but now also on other regional projects. ‘Old Regionalism scholars’, on the other hand, need to reconsider ‘the importance of critical theory and political economy’ as well as the role of ‘global/international issues’ in their analyses. He concludes that, ‘both sets of scholars would gain from explicit investigation of what may not, after all, be quirks of the EU system as it advances, […] but rather inherent features of Regionalism wherever it is practised’ (2008, 49).

  Overall, the concept of Regionalism refers to a policy project within a particular region that is conducted by both state and non-state actors (Hettne 2005, 545). Regionalism, therefore, tells the story of how regions are constructed. Some authors further differentiate ‘soft’ Regionalism, where actors aim to promote a common regional awareness (we-feeling), from ‘hard’ Regionalism, which rather indicates the formation of inter-state institutions (Fawcett 2005, 24; Hurrell 1995b, 39). In short, ‘Regionalism connotes those state-led projects of cooperation that emerge as a result of intergovernmental dialogues and treaties’ (Breslin and Higgott 2000, 344).

  However, the concept of regionalization – which, often enough, is confused with Regionalism, but which should in fact be considered as another orientation of new Regionalism – points to the dynamic, more complex and rather spontaneous process of forming regions (Hettne 2005, 545).20 The notion of regionalization incorporates a range of new variables at many differing levels-of-analysis, and in various issue-areas that need to be combined in the analyses (Fawcett 2005, 25; Warleigh-Lack 2006, 759). The study of regionalization also underscores the importance of its empirical dynamic, which ‘leads to patterns of cooperation, integration, complementarity and convergence within a particular cross-national geographical space’ (Hettne and Söderbaum 2000, 458).

  Regionalization and globalization, thus, describe two different perspectives on the changing structure of our world order. Regionalization refers to the endogenous perspective – that is, the level of regionness that is shaped by the actors within a region. In contrast, globalization denotes an exogenous perspective – highlighting the impact of global challenges and how ‘regionalization and globalization are intertwined articulations […] of global transformation’ (Hettne 2003, 26; Hettne 2002, 2005; Hettne and Söderbaum 2000, 458). Hettne’s fresh focus on the role of agency within the making of the region is particularly interesting given that he combines aspects of social constructivism and comparative politics (cf. Hettne and Söderbaum 2000).

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  Exploring the New South American Regionalism (NSAR)

  • Ernesto Vivares(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Today the relation between Regionalism and regionalization is somehow a key part of the debates in the IPE of development. Despite the fact that many still equate Regionalism with interstate integration, a top-down event, certainly the debate about Regionalism has moved to a bottom-up focus and, in particular, to the exploration of the relation between formal and informal Regionalism, formal and informal coalitions, formal and informal economic actors, regional communities, and even organized crime. In that sense, the study of Regionalism is attached to the study of development, world orders, and globalization.

  We can say therefore that Regionalism constitutes the body of ideas, values, and political projects that contribute to the creation, maintenance, or transformation of a region type or world order. Generally, Regionalism leads into the creation of different kinds of regional institutional structures, which can imply cession or not of national sovereignty. To talk about Regionalism as structures of formal governmental and economic integration is a narrow idea derived from the Cold War; the notion of Regionalism is more comprehensive than integration but includes it. Regionalism includes state and non-state actors, formal and informal regional networks, all capable of building regionalization. Regionalization then is the structural process of regional formation. Regionalization can be caused by regionalist projects, but it can also rise in the absence of them (Söderbaum, 2012; Söderbaum and Shaw, 2003).

  These conceptual distinctions are noteworthy, as they permit the assembling of a multidisciplinary research approach able to grasp different dimensions of Regionalism and regionalization in agential and structural terms, including the elements of conflict and well-being. A typical example of this is the study of the complex orientations and configurations of political projects of Regionalism in developing areas. Seen from the perspective of agency, they appear as a complex and even contradictory web of overlapping and opposing projects; however, when they are related to their different economic configurations and orientations, there emerges a new sense of the underlying PE. Something similar occurs with the study of conflict, which is usually associated in development studies to inequality. However, as shown by different studies in various developing regions, conflict might also be connected to organized crime and even defense and intelligence (Rivera, 2011a, 2011b).

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  The European Union and the United States

  Competition and Convergence in the Global Arena

  • Steven McGuire, Michael Smith(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 7 Regionalism and InterRegionalism The European Union is a regional as well as a global power. It is indeed the most richly developed, complex and successful regional political arrangement in existence. The United States too is a regional and global power; its regional relationships are con-structed differently from the EU’s but both actors have sought to develop a complex web of geographically defined economic, polit-ical and – in the broadest sense – security relationships. Some of these owe their existence to history, while the new Regionalism of recent years owes a great deal to both actors seeking to maximize their access to markets and secure foreign policy goals in the post-cold-war world. The international system is often less globalized than commonly thought – or at least differently globalized – with distinct regional political and economic arrangements surviving and indeed thriving in this age of the global (Gamble and Payne 1996; Hettne et al. 1999; Schirm 2002; Payne 2004). That large entities like the US and the European Union have policies tailored to specific regions is not a surprise. However, there has been something of a renaissance in the use of region-specific politics in recent years, partly out of frus-tration with multilateralism at the global level but also as a reflec-tion of the important historical and cultural realities that shape and constrain policy choice. As power in the international political economy has shifted away from Europe and America and towards Asia, both the EU and the US have relied on regional or bilateral pacts where their bargaining power is significant. There is however an important point of contrast in the manner in which the EU and the US engage regionally.

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  Regionalism in Hard Times

  Competitive and post-liberal trends in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas

  • Mario Telò(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The number, scope, and influence of these associations and regimes has increased considerably since the early 1980s, in parallel with globalization. 2 (d) A customs union with a common trade policy : these include common external tariff and foreign economic policy (for example, MERCOSUR), the EU, and the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), including five members of (SADC). The definition of ‘strategic Regionalism’, that is competing for defending regional geoeconomic interests and asserting distinctive socio-economic and learning models, could also be used to cope with such a phenomenon. (e) We understand economic regional integration to be a common market and an economic union, including not only cooperation, but also coordination of national macroeconomic policies and sometimes currencies, through various intergovernmental and, rarely, supranational institutions. (f) The new regionalist approach emphasizes that regions are not only entities of social interaction, but also of policymaking and polity construction. We don’t understand a ‘regional polity’ to be a regional federal State, but various forms/regimes of political cooperation (up to gradually coordinating national policies in sensitive fields) and an institutional capacity to minimize internal asymmetries and maximize external influence. 3 Furthermore, what matters as the sociopolitical construction or ‘cognitive Regionalism’ are communitarian feelings of shared identity. Finally, there is not an evolutionary sequence: all the five types of cooperation above do not need to be included within this deeper step. Using the historical and theoretical framework provided by the chapter one, we will focus on empirical and comparative questions

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  Rethinking Regionalism

  • Fredrik Söderbaum(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  174 11 Regions in InterRegionalism A great deal of discussion on interRegionalism has centred on the EU’s past and present interregional relations. For instance, there is a long history of loose region-to-region relations between the EU and the ACP group of countries, which the new Cotonou Agreement and other EU–Africa frameworks have revised and developed. There is also a long history of interregional coopera-tion between the EU and ASEAN since the early 1970s. And from the 1990s onwards the EU further developed interregional coop-eration as a key feature of external relations, albeit not always with a consistent formulation (Söderbaum and Stålgren 2010a; Baert et al. 2014 ). Most literature on the topic from the 1990s assumed that inter-Regionalism was an integrative process promoting cosmopolitan values and, as such, constituted a building block of a single multilayered global governance architecture (Baert et al. 2014 ). Since then, a growing number of observers have claimed that interRegionalism peaked in the 1990s and early 2000s, and is now receding or being replaced by other forms of activity. Thus, many have talked about the rise and fall of interRegionalism (Robles 2008 ; Hardacre 2010 ). Camroux has fundamentally questioned the significance and relevance of interRegionalism, claiming that the ‘imagined alchemy denoted as interRegionalism [is not] an appropriate and useful analytical category’ (Camroux 2010 : 57). InterRegionalism is conceptually and theoretically underdevel-oped as a subject and this goes a long way in explaining the mis-interpretation that interRegionalism has a decreasing significance in global politics. Some political issues certainly involve less inter-regional cooperation than others, but this chapter will draw atten-tion to the diversity of contemporary interRegionalism, and to the Regions in InterRegionalism 175 ‘nesting’ of interregional relations with other forms of coopera-tion in a multilayered governance framework.

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  Regionalism and Governance in the Americas

  Continental Drift

  • L. Fawcett, M. Serrano, L. Fawcett, M. Serrano(Authors)
  • 2005(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The “two-level games” of domestic analysis hardly touch upon sub-elite realms, understandably perhaps when these are often seething with opposition to the perceived neoliberalism of free trade policies. For its part, the new study of regional security com- plexes has been notably mute on trade as a past and potential source of security conflict. 8 Regionalism and Governance in the Americas The challenge instead remains the one posed by the economists: why should there be any motives for regional integration (if we must allow that it happens) other than trade? These motives will probably be malign. If they are malign, they are probably politically motivated. 31 Political motives scarcely count as rational motives; others count not at all. Faithful to this sovereign set of assumptions, regionalist discourse has fallen upon ordinary language with the reforming zeal of an arbi- trary monarch: Regionalization or Regionalism has been used to refer to an economic process in which trade and investment within a given region – however defined – grow more rapidly than the region’s trade and investment with the rest of the world… Regionalization in this economic sense should not be confused with Regionalism as a form of political organization… 32 [Regional] widening means an enlargement of the market, permit- ting even greater economies of scale. Deepening involves the reduc- tion of internal barriers or distortions. 33 To which list of ordinarily capacious, but regionalistically shrunken terms might be added “convergence,” “integration” and “cooperation.” Regional widening, regional deepening – shouldn’t these also refer to values and beliefs? But no. Regionalist discourse provided no vocabu- lary for those motives. In Habermasian terms, Regionalism is all system, no sociocultural lifeworld.

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  Rethinking Hegemony

  • Owen Worth(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  As well as these, China has emerged as a key regional leader in Asia, which has led to the potential of a larger form of regional unity in Asia that might in time clash with developed entities such as the EU. To scrutinize this further, it is necessary to look at the current developments of regional integra-tion to assess their form, content and see the direction in which they are heading. Regionalism 133 Europe Process The project of European integration has had a long and well docu-mented history, from its early days as a US-backed coal and steel community through to its consolidation as a political entity in the post-Cold War era. In terms of its emergence as a regional superpower in world politics, its newfound economic might, aided by the rise of the euro and its bloc vote in the WTO, Europe has seen its prominence as a unified actor grow on the global stage. That said, the political and economic integration of the EU is one that remains highly complex and unequal. It also remains a body that attracts great divisions in terms of its larger role. The various theories that have been put forward to describe the evolution of the EU have been complicated by constant moves and changes to the structure and scope of the organi-zation. As a result, the way the EU has been understood has never produced a definitive answer. We have seen how the EU has emerged from a federal organization to become one seeking to stress that it existed primarily as a state-centre intergovernmental organization by the end of the 1960s. It has also been understood as a neo-functional-ist organization that developed through necessity (Rosamond 2000). In recent years we have seen the emergence of a twin-speed Europe, where certain states opt in and out of certain protocols within the EU. The obvious example of this is with regard to the euro, where states are divided into Eurozone states, states that have entered an exchange rate system, and those who have opted out of the currency altogether.

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  Walter Lippmann's Philosophy of International Politics

  • Anwar Hussain Syed(Author)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary Collection

    (Publisher)

  On the other hand, there was the association of the great powers themselves. They would act toward one another as equals. Cooperation between them would be voluntary, sustained by a realization of common interests and facilitated by consultation and exchange of views. With or without the aid of joint planning boards, they would turn out common military and foreign policies, which each would pass on to its good neighbors. T h e Atlantic Community was then something of a super-region—an association of regional com-munities. With most writers on the subject the regional organization is a useful but definitely subordinate adjunct of the world organization. It is intended primarily to deal with local dis-putes, and thus to lessen the work load of the parent organ-ization. Lippmann's Regionalism, on the other hand, does not derive from or depend upon the universal society. T h e regions are not the satellites of the general international body: the ν are rather the pivots around which the latter revolves. Thev, and not the individual nation-states, are its • 7 7 constituent members. They would live on even if the world organization disintegrated. Nor are regional organizations in Lippmann's scheme of things primarily concerned with the settlement of local disputes. For normally there would be no such disputes, war between the members of a region being outlawed. Regional planners and authorities would be con- 2 0 2 PHILOSOPHY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS cerned primarily with fortifying the region against possible aggression from other regions. It should be stated here that Regionalism was a subject much discussed in American, British and European official circles during 1943-1944, when Lippmann was writing his U.S.

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