Beyond the ‘new’ regionalism

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Much of my recent work in this field has been carried out jointly with Fredrik Söderbaum, and his help in writing this article has also been invaluable. Tony Payne's generous support and enthusiasm was also of great importance, now as earlier. Notes 1. Donald Puchala once compared this predicament with the blind man's unsuccessful attempts to define an elephant. See the discussion in Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration (Palgrave, 2000), p. 12. 2. For introductions to the earlier debate focusing on Europe, see R. J. Harrison, Europe in Question (Allen Rosamond, Theories of European Integration; and Dimitris N. Cryssochoou, Theorizing European Integration (Sage, 2001). 3. Previous overviews of the recent debate include Björn Hettne, Andras Inotai Mario Telò (ed.), European Union and New Regionalism: Regional Actors and Global Governance in a Post-hegemonic era (Ashgate, 2001); and Fredrik Söderbaum and David Mitrany, A Working Peace System (Quadrangle Books, 1943, 1966). 23. Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, p. 60. 24. Bela Balassa, The Theory of Economic Integration (Allen also Power and Interdependence (Little, Brown and Ernst B. Haas William D. Coleman Telò, European Union and New Regionalism; Sheila Page, Regionalism in the Developing Countries (Palgrave, 2000); Fawcett Gamble Edward D. Mansfield and Michael Schulz, Fredrik Söderbaum and Björn Hettne Jaime de Melo and Vincent Cable and Finn Laursen, Comparative Regional Integration: Theoretical Perspectives (Ashgate, 2003). The former focuses on theoretical approaches, the latter makes a conscious selection of both theoretical approaches and empirical cases to illuminate them. Two more focused theoretical explorations are Mattli, The Logic of Regional Integration; and Stefan A. Schirm, Globalization and the New Regionalism: Global Markets, Domestic Politics and Regional Cooperation (Polity, 2002). 39. See the special issue of Third World Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 5 (1999) on 'New Regionalisms in the New Millennium'. 40. The discussion on these issues draws on Björn Hettne Emanuel Adler and Barry Buzan de jure and de facto regionalisation; states-led regionalism and market and society-induced regionalisation; and formal/informal regionalism. 57. Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century's Dawn: Global and Domestic Influences on Grand Strategy (Princeton University Press, 1998). 58. See, for instance, Luk Van Langenhove, 'Theorising Regionhood', UNU/CRIS Working Papers No. 1, Bruges, 2003. 59. Fredrik Söderbaum, The Political Economy of Regionalism: The Case of Southern Africa (Palgrave, 2003). 60. Morten Bøås, Marianne H. Marchand and Markus Perkmann and Richard Falk, The Great War on Global Terror (Interlink, 2003). 80. R. R. Goodin, Green Political Theory (Polity, 1992). 81. Mark Duffield, 'Reprising durable disorder: network war and the securitization of aid', in: Hettne and 'Unilateralism is the key to our success', Guardian Weekly, 22 December 2001. 87. Roger Burbach Richard Falk, The Declining World Order: America's Imperial Geopolities (Routledge, 2004); James J. Hentz (ed.), The Obligation of Empire: United States' Grand Strategy for a New Century (University Press of Kentucky, 2004); and Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy and the End of the Republic (Metropolitan Books, 2004). 88. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (Random House, 1987). Eric Hobsbawm made the following observation regarding old and new imperialism, further underlining the problem of sustainability: 'The present world situation is quite unprecedented. The great global empires that we have seen before … bear little comparison with what we see today in the United States empire … A key novelty of the US imperial project is that all other great powers and empires knew that they were not the only ones, and none aimed at global domination. None believed themselves invulnarable, even if they believed themselves to be central to the world – as China did, or the Roman Empire at its peak' (cited in Burbach & Tarbell, Imperial Overstretch, p. 179). 89. Shaun Breslin et al. (eds), New Regionalisms in the Global Political Economy (Routledge, 2002), p. 11. 90. W. Andrew Axline, 'Comparative case studies of regional cooperation among developing countries', in: Axline, The Political Economy of Regional Cooperation, p. 11. 91. Andrew Hurrell, 'The regional dimension in international relations theory' in: Farrell et al., Global Politics of Regionalism, pp. 38–53. 92. Immanuel Wallerstein makes an interesting distinction between civilisation and the empirical historical system, the empire. 'A civilization refers to a contemporary claim about the past in terms of its use in the present to justify heritage, separateness, rights.' See Immanuel Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World-system (Cambridge University Press, 1991). Another materialist approach is to be found in Robert Cox, 'Civilisations in World Political Economy', New Political Economy, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1996), pp. 141–56. In the globalised condition, civilisations are de-territorialised and constitute 'communities of thought', global projects in conflict and dialogue. The interplay implies a 'supra-intersubjectivity' and, if it takes the form of dialogue rather than conflict, one can speak of a 'new multilateralism'. This concept is developed in Robert W. Cox, The New Realism: Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order (Macmillan, 1997). 93. Charles A. Kupchan, 'After Pax Americana: benign power, regional integration and the sources of stable multipolarity', in: Birthe Hansen & Bertel Heurlin (eds), The New World Order: Contrasting Theories (Palgrave, 2000), pp. 134–66.