World Politics

Regionalism and Regionalisation

Regionalism
Top down governmental projects Proceeds through intergovernmental negotiation and dialogue Creation of formal agreements creating de jure regions The conscious, deliberate and purposive attempts made by national states to create formal mechanisms for dealing with common transnational issues

Regionalisation
Actual processes of real integration which tie people or economies together irrespective of national political boundaries Could be based on societal integration, but most often discussed in terms of economic integration, led by investment and trade relationships

The creation of transnational economic spaces creating a de facto region that does not need a formal regional organisation to flourish

 Regionalism

describes the activities of the organizations to establish the legal & non-legal framework which influences the operation and the decision-making of each economic actors within the relevant regional area
Regionalization:

can be viewed as a result of the independent decision-making of the economic actors.

The relationship between regionalization and regionalism is not always harmonious: it includes some tension. Indeed, the institutional setup primarily tends to liberalize the economic exchange among the member states, so that the regional economy can raise productivity. However, regionalism does not always allow unlimited activities, but sometime calls for the intervention and modification of regionalization.

BUT NOT MUTUALLY EXCUSIVE

Regionalisation can result in regionalism
de facto integration may lead to intergovernmental regionalism to create a new form of governance

Regionalism can help decrease the salience of national borders and allow regionalisation to flourish
formal integration is necessary for regionalisation to occur and make the region cohere

Regionalisation without regionalism

East Asian economic integration (but on the way to regionalism?????)

Regionalism without regionalisation?

Parliamentary Association of Black Sea Economic Cooperation Central America (in both cases, is the focus of economic relations with an extra-regional economy economy rather than within the region?)

The First Wave of (Studies of) Regionalism

1950s considerations of the sustainability of the nationstate
(a) The idea that the nation had been the problem in the 30s and 40s (b) The example of integration the European Coal and Steel Community (c) Post colonialism - East African Common Market (now defunct

The Nation as the Problem

Security the need to tie Germany in to a European future and prevent any post-WWI resurgence after WWII

Cold War bilpolarisation and the need for security communities Idealism the conception of a European home and harmony

Functionalism the role of functional and technocratic imperatives in laying the basis for new forms of authority that transcend political borders. Associated with the work of David Mitrany (look back at lecture on international organisations) eg: ECSC Most effective to deal with issues relating to coal and steel production transnationally, so create an organisation that can coordinate policy across national boundaries but only relating to this single specific issue. When other transnational issues need dealing with, create new functionally discrete organisations to deal with that specific issue

A Functionalist View of Europe

No European Union but . A Coal and Steel Community Euratom A European Transportation Authority

A European Food Agency etc etc

both the type of organisation and its membership would vary on a case by case basis So Mitrany is not a theorist or regionalism, but in some ways, an anti-regionalism theorist

Neofunctionalism
Most often associated with the work of Ernst Haas Conception of Spillover cant deal with issues relating to coal and steel production without also considering social policy, trade, investment rules, domestic laws etc etc. cooperation on functional areas will inevitably spillover into economic and then political integration on a territorial rather than functional basis driven by the actions of rational actors will eventually lead to the transcendence of the state system

Beyond Haas
Scheingold, Lindberg and Nye

European experience as a predictive force for regionalism elsewhere

Emphasis on on functional pressures but also:growing interdependence need to find collective answers to collective problems accepts the significance of non-state actors

The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory Haas, 1975

(a) The failure to replicate the European experience elsewhere (I think expecting there to be a single model of regionalism was perhaps the biggest flaw in this early thinking) (b) States had not withered away in Europe national governments continued to be powerful actors outside the region eg: in international relations inside the region not transcending the national but instead intergovernmental where national preferences and power remained more important that the region as an actor (c) Towards concepts of (complex) interdependence

The Second Wave of (Studies of) Regionalism

revival of European integration that accompanied the single market programme in the mid-1980s an activist European Commission under Jacques Delors growing interest in a federalist Europe from EEC to EU The Treaty of the European Union (Maastricht) 1992 concept of citizenship of EU foundation for monetary union common foreign and security policy

But a key acceptance by most that the European case was ONE model of regional integration, not THE model

The Southern Cone (Mercusor) 1991

Resurgence and expansion of Association of South East Asian Nations

North American Free Trade Area (signed 1992, enforced 1994) Southern African Development Community transformed from organisation to resist RSA to incorporating RSA into development community in 1992 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation 1989 Pacific Islands Forum 1995

Theorising Contemporary Regionalism

Having looked at neofunctionalism we will not repeat it here, though we should note that there is still a strong neofunctionalist school

Neoliberal Institutionalism
Close relative of neofunctionalism but also influenced by the realist tradition in that it is heavily statist and rationalist. Increased international exchanges lead to problems that require collective management - to lead to the expansion of formal inter-state cooperative institutions.
No longer sees the European experience as a predictive model.

Neorealism
cooperating to compete
(though some theorists argue that any such cooperation should be temporary)

political regionalism as a defence mechanism against a common enemy

economic regionalism to maximise the national interests in a game of mercantilist competition

emphasises the importance of the hegemon

Hegemony and regionalism

Andrew Hurrell (i) Emergence of sub-regional groups as a response to actual or potential hegemon. eg: ASEAN against Vietnam and then China, Gulf Cooperation Council against Iran (ii) an attempt to restrict the free exercise of hegemonic power, through the creation of regional institutions eg: getting Germany into the EU as means of regional entrapment (iii) Bandwagonning - the attempt to get special favours from the hegemon by forming an alliance. Could be political gains, or simply access to the hegemons market (iv) The hegemon pushes for regionalism where it is beneficial (and blocks it where it is not) eg: US support for ASEAN, but not for Latin American regionalism

Constructivism
Emmanual Adler cognitive regions Emphasis on regional awareness and identity common culture, history, religion common enemy common cultural challenge

Whose identity matters? Popular versus elite identities

Does a regional identity lead to the creation of regions, or does the creation of regions lead to the creation of a regional identity?

Is identity the glue that makes a region cohere

Marxist Interpretations
Peter Cocks
The region, just like the nation, is constructed to (a) facilitate and (b) legitimate the spread of capitalism

Recent developments in regionalism reflect the dominance/hegemony of neo-liberal economic ideas Which has echoes, at least, in much of the literature on .

New Regionalism Theories

Why New?

new regional organisations (see ealier)

Regionalism in the South (or non-core regions)

Multiple regionalism
Focus on a variety of actors not just states but civil society, companies etc.

Hegemony of neoliberal economic strategies (sometimes called convergence theory) Paul Bowles By 1991 the purpose of forming a regional trading bloc was no longer premised on the need to be more independent of the global economy but rather seen as a measure to ensure continued participation in it. The fear of developing countries was no longer one of dependence on the global economy but rather was seen as a measure to ensure continued participation in it. North-South regionalism whereby governments in the South attempt to tie their economic futures with their Northern neighbours

Regulatory Regionalism
financial crises in East Asia, Russia and Latin America led to a rethink of the benefits of un-regulated neoliberalism in addition, IFIs perceived to reflect the interests of the developed West/North. Regions as mediating layers of governance between the nation-state and global financial institutions and/or between the national economy and globalisation
led to rethink of basic understanding of the global economy and regionalism in Latin America led to failed attempt to build and Asian Monetary Fund in East Asia but ultimately closer cooperation between ASEAN, China, Korea and Japan and the Chiang Mai Initiative of regional currency swaps

Does the European Union

(a) protect the European Social Model from the vagaries of US promoted neoliberalism - Colin Hay and Ben Rosamond (b) act as a filter for globalisation - Helen Wallace

aka the Goldilocks Principle

Peter Katzenstein Because they often mediate between national and global effects, as in the story of Goldilocks, [regions] are neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right A contradictory set of explanations? regions as facilitating globalisation regions as mediating globalisation

Or is it finding the best way to facilitate and legitimate globalisation as Cocks argued?

Regionalism and Globalisation

Does this suggest that regionalism and globalisation are dichotomous? Friedberg recent rhetoric notwithstanding, the dominant trend in world politics today is towards regionalization rather than globalization, toward fragmentation rather than globalization Uruguay round of GATT 1986-94 to negotiate freer trade led some to conclude that regional blocs were the only alternative Aforementioned response to 1997 financial crises

Circling the Wagons ?

NAFTA as an example of defensive regionalism ? defending the economic heartland competing with the EU a bulwark against East Asia (and potential East Asian regionalism?)

But many new regionalism theorists see the two as symbiotic

Open Regionalism
Where any trade concessions between members also apply to non-members eg APEC

EU entry criteria include domestic economic liberalisation which are conducive to globalisation as well as regionalism

Convergence theories and neo-Marxian analyses emphasise the acceptance of neoliberalism as the only developmental game in town

Globalisation and Regionalisation

Regionalisation as the local manifestation of wider global processes

eg: closer economic integration in East Asia

a region of production
but dependent on investment from outside the region ? European and US markets ?

Microregions
Where economic integration takes place across national political borders, it creates new economic spaces This does not necessarily mean that two or more national economies become integrated as one Often it is parts of different national economies that become integrated subnational and crossnational integration

Examples San Diego Tijuana Hong Kong Pearl River Delta growth spillover or metropolitan spillover The Maputo Corridor in Southern Africa Zambesi River Basin Franco-Spanish West Mediterranean Zone

Globalisation

Regional integration

Regional integration

Microregional integration

Back to the question of the salience of the state

Microregional integration and national economic fragmentation Bernard and Ravenhill Malaysian EPZs and Singapore Guangdong, Hong Kong and the rest of China Tijuana and the rest of Mexico

Morata and the EU

power up to the EU and out to the market

where does this leave the national government regions collaborating to solve common problems

A New Third Wave of (studies of) Regionalism?

EU enlargement a dual/multi track Europe? ASEAN plus three ? Or the East Asia Summit? A Free Trade Area of the Americas?

Interregional relations the Asia Europe Meeting