This book examines why regional identities are stronger in some regions than in others, and discusses the underlying causes of the mobilization of sub-state regions in Western Europe over the past fifty years.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

This book offers a timely analysis, and a novel and nuanced argument about post-neoliberal models of regional governance in non-European contexts. It provides the first in-depth, empirically-driven analysis of current models of regional governance in Latin America that emerged out of the crisis of liberalism in the region. It contributes to comparative studies of the contemporary global political economy as it advances current literature on the topic by analysing distinctive, overlapping and conflicting trajectories of regionalism in Latin America. The book critically explores models of transformative regionalism and specific dimensions articulating those models beyond neoliberal consensus-building. As such it contests the overstated case of integration as converging towards global capitalism. It provides an analytical framework that not only examines the 'what, how, who and why' in the emergence of a specific form of regionalism but sets the ground for addressing two relevant questions that will push the study of regionalism further: What factors enable or constrain how transformative a given regionalism is (or can be) with respect to the powers and policies of states encompassed by it? and: What factors govern how resilient a given regionalism is likely to be under changing political and economic conditions?

The book critically analyzes the ongoing changes in the regional, intra-regional, and global dynamics of cooperation, from a multi-disciplinary and pluralist perspective. It is based on the insight that in a post-hegemonic world the formation of regions and the process of globalization can be largely disconnected from the orbit of the US, and that a plurality of power and worldviews has replaced US hegemony. In spite of these changes, most existing analyses of current changes in the world order still rely upon Western-centered approaches, and Westphalian thinking. Against this backdrop, the book proposes to advance a truly global IR understanding of the post-hegemonic world, and weaves together the pluralist and multi-disciplinary perspectives of scholars located all around the world.

Theories of New Regionalism represents the first systematic attempt to bring together leading theories of new regionalism. Major theorists from around the world develop their own distinctive theoretical perspectives, spanning new regionalism & world order approaches along with regional governance, liberal institutionalism & neoclassical development regionalism, to regional security complex theory (RSCT) and the region-building approach.

The Nixon or Guam Doctrine of 1969 stressed the importance of progress towards regional cooperation and Asian collective security, indicating that Asian countries themselves should take the initiative in creating programs in which the United States could participate. This book analyses the development of United States regional cooperation policy on Southeast Asia and its importance to long-term planning for the region that had been the general aim of successive American post-war administrations. The author demonstrates the link between economic regional cooperation and collective security in Southeast Asia, placing regionalism in an international context by examining the influence United States policy and various important events had on the development of Southeast Asian regionalism. Through the analysis of primary material, including previously classified material, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and engagement with historiography of war and peace in Southeast Asia, the book puts forward the argument that Southeast Asian regional cooperation was influenced by both American and Asian policy and its development reflected the economic and political transformation of the post-war Southeast Asian landscape. It also examines the developments in British and Australian policy and how developments in Southeast Asia influenced and, in turn, were affected by the policies of the Western powers. Adding to the current discourse concerning the origins of Southeast Asian regionalism, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Southeast Asian studies, United States political history, international relations and regionalism.

This book comprises key essays on comparative regionalism and, more broadly, on regional conflict and cooperation by Professor Etel Solingen. The study of regionalism, a subject pioneered by Solingen in the 1990s, is now an established field of inquiry, with a large community of scholars and practitioners around the world. This book provides a window into an evolving conceptual framework for comparing regional arrangements, with a special emphasis on non-European regions. Framed by a comprehensive, previously unpublished introduction, the chapters provide a broad spectrum of analysis on domestic political economy, democracy, regional institutions, and global forces as they shape different regional outcomes and trajectories in economics and security. Themes as different as the regional effects of democratization in the Middle East and East Asia, the rise of China, Euro-Mediterranean relations, and regional nuclear trajectories are traced back to a common analytical core. The nature of domestic ruling coalitions serves as the pivotal analytical anchor explaining the effects of globalization and economic reform on different regional arrangements. This collection provides a focal point that brings this work together in a new light and will be of much interest to students of regionalism, international relations theory, international and comparative political economy, international history and grand strategy.

Following the financial crisis at the end of the twentieth century, regionalisms in the global political economy have evolved in a number of ways. This informative book brings together the leading scholars in the field to provide cutting edge analyses of contemporary regions and regionalist projects.Providing an innovative integration of theoretica

This book examines the distinctive evolution of the political and economic relationships of East Asia. It does this by placing East Asian development in the unique historical circumstances that have underpinned its rise to power over the last few decades. This detailed analysis provides the basis for an assessment of a unified East Asian region.

In the wake of the USSR's breakup, the eighty-nine constituent subjects of the Russian Federation emerged as political players, grasping power for local policies from a weakened central authority and electing the legislators who have altered the complexion of the central government. Beyond the Monolith examines the impact of Russia's emerging regionalism on the political, economic, and social transformation of the largest of the successor states of the Soviet Union. The authors explore significant variations between and similarities among different provinces; the development of federalism in Russia; the effectiveness of local government; the power relationships between the center and the regions; the differential impact of privatization outside Moscow and St. Petersburg; and the role of environmental, public health, and labor market factors in regional economies. Contributors are Cynthia Buckley, Carol Clark, Robert V. Daniels, Mark. G. Field, Alexander A. Galkin, Nail Midkhatovich Moukhariamov, Demosthenes James Peterson, Greg Poelzer, Don K. Rowney, Darrell Slider, and John F. Young.