Interregionalism

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Building on the phenomenon of regionalism , interregionalism in political science describes institutionalized relationships between two or more world regions . Relationships are intensifying , especially between the three largest economic areas of Europe , North America and East Asia , which is also reflected in the establishment of new, interregional organizations.

Derivation and classification of the phenomenon

Although the first examples of interregional cooperation can already be found in the 1960s, the phenomenon gained importance during the 1990s with the second wave of regionalization . With this proliferation of regional cooperation agreements, regional organizations such as the EU or ASEAN began to develop their own external relations and to appear as independent actors in world politics.

Accompanying the new regionalism are thus new intermediary institutions:

  • At the sub-regional level for the connection between region and nation
  • At the interregional level for the connection between the region and the globe

For the further understanding of interregionalism, the analysis of the world as tripolar or triadic , both in economic and in political dimensions, is central . The dominance of world politics and world trade by three regions, which increasingly appear as blocks, led to a growing incentive for the governments of the states concerned to facilitate economic exchange and political consensus-building . At the same time, in less developed regions there is an effort to gain access to the most important markets and a say in political development through cooperation agreements.

Interregionalism can be viewed as a dependent variable and is dependent on the development of globalization and regionalization , the interdependencies and the distribution of power between international regions and thus ultimately on the interest of individual states in developing interregional cooperation and adapting it to constantly changing conditions.

In global governance concepts, interregionalism represents a level within a multi-layered governance model that is composed of global multilateral forums, inter- and transregional forums, regional cooperation agreements, subregional, cross-border structures and bilateral, national interactions.

Typology

First and foremost, a distinction must be made between a narrower concept of interregionalism, which describes direct relationships between two - more or less - coordinated groups from different regions, and another concept of interregionalism, which also includes quasi-interregional and transregional relationships. Some researchers also speak of hybrid interregionalism here .

Types of the first category are relationships according to the pattern:

  • Regional organization ← → Regional organizations
  • Regional organization ← → Regional group
  • Regional group ← → Regional group

In the second category these are:

  • Regional group or organization ← → Third country
  • Megaregional relations: groups with states from more than two core regions

Examples of cooperation in the first category are ASEM , EU-LAC or the FTAA . The second category includes APEC , ASEAN + 3 and various bilateral relationships between the EU and individual nation states.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. Jürgen Rüland, Cornelia Storz: Interregionalism and interregional cooperation - the case of Asia-Europe relations. In: Rüland, Schubert, Schucher, Storz (Eds.): Asia-European Relations - Building blocks for global governance? Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2008, ISBN 978-0-415-57423-5
  2. Heiner Hänggi, Ralf Roloff, Jürgen Rüland (eds.): Interregionalism and International Relations. Routledge, Abingdon (Oxon) / New York 2006, ISBN 978-0-415-47972-1
  3. ^ Vinod Aggarwal, Edward A. Fogarty: Explaining Trends in EU Interregionalism. available on the UC Berkeley website : (online)  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 131 kB)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / socs.berkeley.edu