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Abstract The behaviour of regional powers towards their own regions is often volatile in the developing world, which leads to unstable integration processes. This article argues that this volatility is due to limited intra‐regional gains from regional integration in developing regions, which implies that the behaviour of regional powers is constrained by extra‐regional economic interests. When regional integration is not in conflict with extra‐regional interests, regional powers provide regional leadership. However, when extra‐regional interests are in conflict with regional integration, regional powers become regional R ambos. This argument is illustrated with the two examples of B razil's behaviour in M ercosur and S outh A frica's behaviour in SADC . Both regional powers provided leadership during some periods of the regional integration processes, but became R ambos when important extra‐regional interests were at stake. This damaged regional integration processes in S outh A merica and S outhern A frica considerably.
Krapohl et al. (Thu,) studied this question.