1 - INTRODUCTION: WHY REGIONALISM?

Summary

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. 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 remains the “central concept for organising world politics” 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 on the other. Globalism implies universalism and a compelling boundary-blind logic whereas regionalism is more cognizant of discontinuities. It is alive to the differences that are natural among proximate states but at the same time it has the potential to deal with heterogeneity within a common framework. Since its ambit is much less sweeping than globalism it tends to have a wider appeal.