Abstract
Regional institutions have not fared well in the first decades of the twenty-first century. The European Union (EU), the regional project with by far the deepest and most extensive collaboration, has been one of the principal victims of the global financial crisis. It may yet emerge from the crisis reconstituted, with its members committed to even deeper integration, but this outcome remains uncertain at the time of writing. The Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR, Southern Common Market) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are both in disarray. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) did declare in November 2015 that it had reached its goal of creating an economic community—but this fell far short of the deep economic integration originally envisaged. Meanwhile, the advent of “mega-regional” agreements—the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—threatens to undermine more traditional regional schemes.
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Notes
John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism: The Anatomy of an Institution,” International Organization 46, no. 3 (1992), 571. The World Trade Organization (WTO) adds further confusion to the issue by categorizing all nonuniversal trade agreements as “regional.” The vast majority of the “regional” preferential trade agreements concluded in recent years are in fact bilateral; a much more complex mix of interregional and transregional agreements has also emerged. On the definition of “regional,” see WTO, “Regional Trade Agreements,” http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/region_e/region_e.htm (accessed November 11, 2014). According to the WTO’s list of regional trade agreements (RTAs), 77 RTAs have come into force since 2009, of which 50 are bilateral; see WTO, “List of All RTAs,” http://rtais.wto.org/UI/PublicAHRTAList.aspx (accessed November 11, 2014).
As Andrew Hurrell notes, “Regionalization is not based on the conscious policy of states or groups of states, nor does it presuppose any particular impact on the relations between the states of the region … patterns of regionalization do not necessarily coincide with the borders of states.” Andrew Hurrell, “Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective,” in Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (eds.), Regionalism in World Politics: Regional Organization and International Order (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 40.
And in North America, the response of communities to regionalization has been perceived to have undermined the prospects for regionalism. Ann Capling and Kim Richard Nossal, “The Contradictions of Regionalism in North America,” Review of International Studies 35, supplement Sl (2009), 147–67.
See Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003);
Etel Solingen, Regional Orders at Century’s Dawn: Global and Domestic Influences on Grand Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998).
Joseph S. Nye, Peace in Parts: Integration and Conflict in Regional Organization (Boston: Little, Brown, 1971).
See Benjamin E. Goldsmith, “A Liberal Peace in Asia,” Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 1 (2007), 5–27;
John R. Oneal, “Empirical Support for the Liberal Peace,” in Edward D. Mansfield and Brian M. Pollins (eds.), Economic Interdependence and International Conflict: New Perspectives on an Enduring Debate (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2003), pp. 189–206. But disputes within regional institutional frameworks in the absence of such levels of interdependence and the associated domestic political coalitions have on occasion contributed to interstate conflict, notably the so-called football war between two members of the Central American Common Market, El Salvador and Honduras, in July 1969, and Tanzania’s war with Uganda in 1978–9.
See Vincent Cable, “The ‘Football War’ and the Central American Common Market,” Journal of Common Market Studies 45, no. 4 (October 1969), 658–71;
John Ravenhill, “Regional Integration and Development in Africa: Lessons from the East African Community,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 27, no. 3 (1979), 227–46. See also Etel Solingen, “Internationalization, Coalitions, and Regional Conflict and Cooperation,” in Mansfield and Pollins, Economic Interdependence and International Conflict, pp. 60–85.
See, for example, Amitav Acharya, “Ideas, Identity, and Institution-Building: From the ‘ASEAN Way’ to the Asia-Pacific Way’?,” Pacific Review 10, no. 3 (1997), 319–46.
Jeffrey Herbst, “Crafting Regional Cooperation in Africa,” in Amitav Acharya and Alistair Iain Johnston (eds.), Crafting Cooperation: Regional International Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 129–44.
Michael Clough and John Ravenhill, “Regional Cooperation in Southern Africa: The Southern African Development Coordination Conference,” in Michael Clough (ed.), Changing Realities in Southern Africa: Implications for American Policy (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1982), pp. 161–86.
World Bank, Partnering for Africa’s Regional Integration: Progress Report on the Regional Integration Assistance Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa, CAS Progress Report no. 60387, March 21, 2011, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2011/03/24/000333037_20110324060711/Rendered/PDF/603870CASP0P101OFFICIAL0USE0ONLY191 .pdf (accessed September 1, 2014), p. 1.
On the Southern African Power Pool, see Dawn Nagar, “Regional Economic Integration,” in Chris Saunders, Gwinyayi A. Dzinesa, and Dawn Nagar (eds.), Region-Building in Southern Africa: Progress, Problems, and Prospects (London: Zed Books, 2012), pp. 131–47.
Sanchita Basu Das, Jayant Menon, Rodolfo Severino, and Omkar Lal Shrestha (eds.), The ASEAN Economic Community: A Work in Progress (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2013).
On the ASEAN experience, see Helen E. S. Nesadurai, “Malaysia’s Conflict with the Philippines and Indonesia over Labour Migration: Economic Security, Interdependence, and Conflict Trajectories,” Pacific Review 26, no. 1 (2013), 89–113.
See, for example, A. A. Afolyan, “Immigration of ECOWAS Aliens in Nigeria,” International Migration Review 22, no. 1 (1988), 21–3.
On the colonial history of the franc zone, see, for example, Allechi M’Bet and Amlan Madeline Niamkey, “European Economic Integration and the Franc Zone: The Future of the CFA Franc After 1996: Part I: Historical Background and a New Evaluation of Monetary Co-operation in the CFA Countries,” African Economic Research Consortium Research Paper no. 19, July 1993, http://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/2046/No%2019.pdfsequence=l (accessed November 11, 2014), pp. 3–12.
On the colonial history of the franc zone, see, for example, Allechi M’Bet and Amlan Madeline Niamkey, “European Economic Integration and the Franc Zone: The Future of the CFA Franc After 1996: Part I: Historical Background and a New Evaluation of Monetary Co-operation in the CFA Countries,” African Economic Research Consortium Research Paper no. 19, July 1993, http//opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/2046/No%2019.pdf sequence=l (accessed 0November 11, 2014), pp. 3–12.
Tobias Lenz, “Spurred Emulation: The EU and Regional Integration in Mercosur and SADC,” West European Politics 35, no. 1 (2012), 164.
As discussed extensively in studies such as Vinod K. Aggarwal (ed.), Institutional Designs for a Complex World: Bargaining, Linkages, and Nesting (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998);
and Barbara Koremenos, Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal (eds.), The Rational Design of International Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Kenneth W. Abbot and Duncan Snidal, “Hard and Soft Law in International Governance,” International Organization 54, no. 3 (2000), 421–56.
See, for example, the discussions collected in Brian Bow and Greg Anderson (eds.), Regional Governance in Post-NAPTA North America: Building without Architecture (New York: Routledge, 2014).
See Ernst B. Haas, Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964).
Andrew Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in the European Community: A Liberal Intergovernmentalist Approach,” Journal of Common Market Studies 31, no. 4 (1993), 481.
Etel Solingen, “ASEAN, Quo Vadis? Domestic Coalitions and Regional Co-operation,” Contemporary Southeast Asia 21, no. 1 (1999), 30–53.
Etel Solingen, “Democracy, Economic Reform, and Regional Cooperation,” Journal of Theoretical Politics 8, no. 1 (1996), 79–114.
See Peter F. Cowhey, “Domestic Institutions and the Credibility of International Commitments: Japan and the United States,” International Organization 47, no. 2 (1993), 299–326.
Ernst B. Haas, “International Integration: The European and the Universal Process,” International Organization 15, no. 3 (1961), 366–92.
International Development Association (IDA) and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), Regional Integration Assistance Strategy for Subsaharan Africa, World Bank Regional Integration Department, Africa Region Report no. 43022-AFR, March 18, 2008, http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGINICOO/Resources/1587517–1271810608103/RIAS -Paper-Final-Approved-Oct2010.pdf (accessed September 1, 2014).
The real value of which is substantially overstated because of the double-counting involved when components cross national boundaries on multiple occasions. See Hubert Escaith and Satoshi Inomata (eds.), Trade Patterns and Global Value Chains in East Asia: From Trade in Goods to Trade in Tasks, World Bank and Institute of Developing Economies—Japan External Trade Organisation, 2011, http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/stat_tradepat_globvalchains_e.pdf (accessed September 1, 2014).
Sven W. Arndt and Henryk Kierzkowski (eds.), Fragmentation: New Production Patterns in the World Economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
Richard E. Baldwin, 21st Century Regionalism: Tilling the Gap between 21st Century Trade and 20th Century Trade Rules, Centre for Economic Policy Research, Policy Insight no. 56, 2011, http://www.cepr.org/pubs/policyinsights/PolicyInsight56.pdf (accessed September 1, 2014), p. 3.
Government revenue in Africa remains dependent on revenue from tariffs to an exceptional degree. Lawrence Hinkle and Richard Newfarmer estimate that the median African country depends on tariffs for 2 percent of GDP and 15 percent of government revenue; for those most dependent on this source of revenue, tariffs constitute 3–6 percent of GDP and over one-quarter of government revenues. Lawrence E. Hinkle and Richard S. Newfarmer, “Risks and Rewards of Regional Trading Arrangements in Africa: Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and Sub-Saharan Africa,” in François Bourguignon and Boris Pleskovic (eds.), Gnrowth and Integration: Annual World Bank Conference on Development Economics 2006 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006), p. 181.
Richard E. Baldwin, “Managing the Noodle Bowl: The Fragility of East Asian Regionalism,” Singapore Economic Review 53, no. 3 (2008), 449–78.
UNECA, AU, and AfDB, Assessing Regional Integration in Africa VI: Harmonizing Policies to Transform the Trading Environment, 2013, http://www.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/aria_vi_english_full.pdf(accessed September 1, 2014), p. 34.
Paul Brenton and Gözde Isik (eds.), De-fragmenting Africa: Deepening Regional Trade Integration in Goods and Services, World Bank Development Policy Review no. 68490, 2012, http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2012/05/03/000333038_2012050300 0714/Rendered/PDF/684900ESW0Whit00Box367921B00PUBLIC0.pdf (accessed September 1, 2014), Chapter 2.
Ernst Haas put forward the argument that regional integration theory was obsolete in a context of increased global interdependence. At the time, this judgment may have been premature, but it now seems to be largely vindicated. Ernst Haas, The Obsolescence of Regional Integration Theory (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, University of California, 1975).
I explore some of the issues in John Ravenhill, “Global Value Chains and Development,” Review of International Political Economy 21, no. 1 (2014), 264–74.
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Ravenhill, J. (2016). Regional Integration in Africa: Theory and Practice. In: Levine, D.H., Nagar, D. (eds) Region-Building in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137586117_3
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