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Friends in the region: A comparative study on friendship building in regional integration

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Abstract

The role of international friendship in regional integration – be it as one of encouraging integration or as its by-product – tends to be overshadowed by (realist) assumptions of naked self-interest. This article aims to open up a space for friendship in the study of regional integration, by exploring the structuration of a series of speech acts and institutional facts that can be interpreted as signs of engagement in, and proofs of, friendship. In doing this, it puts forward a new analytical perspective and methodological framework. The case studies chosen to illustrate the analysis – the Franco–German and the Argentine–Brazilian dyads – reflect the historical meaning of the experience of moving away from enmity/antagonism towards building relationships based on mutual trust, which put these dyads at the centre of regional integration processes.

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Notes

  1. Later that same year Argentina, Brazil, the ABACC and the International Atomic Energy Agency signed an agreement on full-scope safeguards, something the two states had hitherto refused to do. In addition, by 1994 both Argentina and Brazil had ratified the Tlatelolco Treaty. With these developments, their nuclear developments were not just transparent to one another, but also to the rest of the world.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Michael Cox, Sabine Saurugger, Graham Smith, Andrea Teti, Nikolaos Zahariadis, participants of the Politics and IR Research Seminar at the University of Aberdeen, and members and participants of the two panels on Friendship and IR at the 2010 ISA Convention in New Orleans for their comments, suggestions and questions. We would also like to acknowledge the support received from the Visiting Scholar Programme of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the University of Aberdeen.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Politics and IR, University of Aberdeen, Dunbar Street, Aberdeen, AB24 3QY, Scotland

    Andrea Oelsner

  2. Laboratoire d’Economie et Sociologie du Travail, Université de la Méditerranée, CNRS UMR 6123, 35 Av Jules Ferry, Aix-en-Provence Cedex, 13626, France

    Antoine Vion

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Correspondence to Andrea Oelsner.

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Oelsner, A., Vion, A. Friends in the region: A comparative study on friendship building in regional integration. Int Polit 48, 129–151 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2010.37

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