Abstract
This chapter reviews the competing and complementing theoretical perspectives dealing with the phenomenon of regionalism. The authors discuss the state of the art in approaches from the main disciplines dealing with regional integration, namely International Relations, New Regionalism and Critical Political Geography. Drawing from these currents, an extended notion of the region as a social space and arena for a multiplicity of actors is developed in such a way as to include its specific occurrence in the South. The authors outline interregionalism as an emergence of regional interaction that brings out certain unvalued characteristics of regions in their institutionalised form. Empirical evidence from the South Atlantic illustrates the character of interregionalism outside of Europe.
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Notes
- 1.
Analogously to the differentiation in ir/IR of using small letters when referring to the political project or “ideology” and using upper case when referring to the theoretical concept, this chapter will refer to regional integration and (new) regionalism as political projects, and to New Regionalism as the theoretical concept and debate (cf. Higgott 2005: 576).
- 2.
The terms “economic regionalism” and “economic regional integration” are thereby often used interchangeably.
- 3.
Although Adam Smith is mostly referred to as an economist, (Cafruny and Ryner (2009): 221) raise a valid point in arguing that The Wealth of Nations “represented a unified conception of social science” well before the fragmentations of social sciences into individual disciplines.
- 4.
Balassa’s model foresees the process starting with a free trade area, which transforms into a customs union and a common market before reaching the stage of an economic union and “complete economic integration”.
- 5.
For the time between the 1960s and the late 1980s, Baldwin (2008: 13) assesses that “regionalism was a simple matter”, consisting of, on the one hand, the “the EEC which encompassed a third of world trade in a highly effective customs union” and, on the other hand, “a slew of RTAs among developing nations that covered a trivial fraction of world trade and in any case never operated effectively”.
- 6.
- 7.
The debate developed further with Moravcsik’s (1993) suggestion of a more rigorous version of intergovernmentalism – liberal intergovernmentalism – and Sandholtz and Stone Sweet’s (1998) positing of the concept of supranational governance, which assumes different levels of supranationalism existing within different policy sectors. This debate has however been forcefully led elsewhere and will not be deepened in this chapter.
- 8.
It was David Harvey who introduced Lefebvre’s work to the Anglophone audience.
- 9.
His work also influenced Edward Soja’s work on Postmodern Geographies in 1989, but while social sciences intoned the call for a spatial turn, geosciences claimed the need for a “geographical turn” of science (cf. Lévy 1999).
- 10.
As mentioned above, this approach was indeed taken up by International Relations and New Regionalism scholars like Bøås, Marchand and Shaw (2005) in recognizing the relevance of space and spatiality for the study of regions and that utilizing insights gathered in parallel disciplines like critical geography or cultural studies would contribute to their own understanding of regionalism. These findings were however not further developed.
- 11.
In fact, Allen refrains from drawing any geographical lines in his study.
- 12.
In his 1995 article, Weichhart claims that there is no accepted theory of space (“Raumtheorie”).
- 13.
Müller-Mahn and Verne (in this volume), for example, relate their case study of the movement of Omani Zanzibaris and Zanzibari Omanis to “soft” concepts of translocal practices and imaginative geographies.
- 14.
Cf. http://www.eeas.europa.eu/regions/index_en.htm. Accessed 23 August 2010.
- 15.
Cf. http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/bilateral-relations/regions/. Accessed 22 January 2011.
- 16.
Cf. http://ec.europa.eu/aidco/where/neighbourhood/regional_cooperation/irc/index_en.xml. Accessed 22 January 2011.
- 17.
Prominent examples of such support are the Jean Monnet Programme (cf. http://www.eu-un.europa.eu/articles/en/article_8339_en.htm), a range of projects under the Seventh Framework Programme (cf. http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/home_en.html), as well as higher education programs and scholarships for potential future foreign elites such as Erasmus Mundus (http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/erasmus_mundus/programme/about_erasmus_mundus_en.php) and Alβan (cf. http://www.programalban.org/; all accessed 30 December 2010).
- 18.
Bear in mind that even a small fraction of the EU’s external funding can correspond to a significant budget share in a receiving regional organisation.
- 19.
Cf. http://ec.europa.eu/budget/figures/2011/2011_en.cfm (accessed 30 June 2011).
- 20.
The Common Market of the South (Mercado Común del Sur) currently consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
- 21.
The Southern African Development Community consists of all 15 countries located at or below latitude 5° S.
- 22.
Cf. the overlapping membership in SADC and COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa), which both aspire to become free trade agreements and customs unions.
- 23.
Cf. the creation of Community of South American Nations in 2004 (later renamed UNASUR) that competes with Mercosur as a main interlocutor for external interregional relations.
- 24.
Cf. Wippel’s chapter in this volume with a focus on the Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Integration.
- 25.
Cf. the chapters by Bromber, and Verne and Müller-Mahn (in this volume) for a micro-perspective on translocal connections.
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Lorenz-Carl, U., Mattheis, F. (2013). Theorizing Regionalism(s): When “Regions” Emerge and Interact. In: Wippel, S. (eds) Regionalizing Oman. United Nations University Series on Regionalism, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6821-5_3
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