Building Markets and Comparative Regionalism: Governance Beyond the Nation-State

Abstract

Regionalism has become a new and striking feature of the international system in the past decade. Although the European Union is the oldest (and most successful) experiment in economic regionalism, other important regionalist initiatives have been launched in North America (NAFTA), South America (MERCOSUR), and Asia (APEC and ASEAN/AFTA). In Andrew Gamble’s words, “The emerging economic geography is regional rather than global, and a distinctive aspect of the emerging world order is the creation or consolidation of regionalist projects” (Gamble 2001: 24). Such projects have become characteristic of the post-Cold War era, and their growth is clearly linked both to the end of the Cold War and changes in American policy. The end of the Cold War was particularly significant for developing countries used to receiving favors from one of the Cold War antagonists. In the new era, “neither aid, nor trade, nor security are assured” so that economic regionalism can be viewed as providing a new framework within which to operate (Fawcett 1995: 22). American policy, for its part, became less focused on a multi-lateral international economic order and began viewing regionalism as a component of its own foreign policy (Wyatt-Walter 1995: 77).