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This paper seeks to understand the socio-political dimension of the political changes in Assam vis-a-vis "regionalism" and its contestations. The Changing contours of regionalism in Assam reflect its distinct character marked by the simultaneous articulation of regional, sub-regional and national identity in a complex socio-ethnic and historical context. The recent political trajectory of Assam bears testimony to the dual challenges facing the forces of regionalism; the presence of sub-regional ethnic identity articulation and the appropriation of regional space and issues by the national parties. Further, the shifting allegiance of ethnic identity-based parties to the national parties is critical to understand the dynamics of regionalism in Assam. Socio-political developments subsequent to the rise of BJP post-2014 provide an interesting landscape to comprehend the complexities inherent in understanding regionalism in contemporary Assam. On a contextual note, the paper also locates the question of regionalism in the ongoing debates of NRC and CAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the trade co-movements and shock spillover across four African geographic regions. Specifically, we were motivated by the very low intra-trade activities in Africa, despite increased regionalism to study the possibility of a country's trade shock being transferred to its trading partners on the continent. Knowing the trade connectedness and shock transmission among African countries will serve as a baseline for the AfCFTA implementation. In our analysis, we considered the four African regional quarterly data between 2005 and 2021 from UNCTAD. The continent was divided into four regions namely, Western, Middle, Eastern, and Southern Africa. We divided the time into pre- and post-AfCFTA periods. The Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) and the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) models were adopted to determine the trade co-movement and the shock spillover respectively. The results show different trade co-movement and trade shock spillovers among the regions at different times. The trade co-movement seems to be dominant between the Middle and Southern African regions. Further analysis shows the presence of trade shock transmission across all four regions. The Western African region exhibits a sign of the biggest trade shock receiver from the other regions, while the Southern African regions turn out to be the largest contributor of trade shocks to the other regions both in the post and pre- AfCFTA period. The study contributes by sending a signal to AfCFTA implementers that trading on the African continents behaves differently among the various geographic regions. It also provides early warning signal for AfCFTA policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars generally agree that regionalization and regionalism are different phenomena; however, unresolved arguments remain as to whether there is a causal relationship between the two. In particular, whether or not regionalization promotes regionalism is a subject of debate. This paper aims to comprehensively clarify and explain the relationship between regionalization as embodied in trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and regionalism as characterized by preferential trade agreements (PTAs) using event history analyses of East Asian economic data from 1985 to 2018. The paper concludes that although a positive and significant relationship exists between FDI and some types of PTAs, trade has no relationship with the latter. This conclusion challenges extant literature, which has argued that an increase in PTAs in East Asia (the outcome of regionalism) is the consequence of economic interdependence (regionalization). Moreover, these findings indicate that political factors such as territorial disputes and joint democracy negatively affect certain types of PTAs. This result is contrary to the conventional wisdom that predicts increased cooperation and lower tariffs between democracies and therefore suggests further investigations of the determinants of PTAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city-regional scale is increasingly being considered the most suitable level for planning and development, yet city-regions have often been established for purely economic reasons in the UK. This paper argues that city-regions are not mere socioeconomic units through which competitiveness can be achieved, but also rich, socioecological spaces. Although the progressive regionalist literature has taken significant steps in this direction, concerns remain that critical contemporary issues such as environmental sustainability, cultural viability, social exclusion or political (dis)empowerment have not been addressed in a holistic way. We attempt to advance the debate and overcome some of the shortcomings by connecting progressive regionalism with two other literature strands: collaborative governance and regenerative development. Based on the synergies found, we design a conceptual framework that can be used to study, understand and improve policy processes and practice, paving pathways towards regenerative city-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Currently, the confrontation between two global giants, the United States and China, in trade and technology advancement and hegemony in international politics is escalating. The possibility of a Sino-U.S. economic "war," or the so-called "new Cold War," not only indicates the escalation of this confrontation but also symptomizes the international order's transformation as a result of the change in power balance and rise of a challenger against the existing United States–led international liberal order. Most IR specialists focus on the prospects of this confrontation and its uncertain worldwide circumstances and are concerned about its impact on East Asian/Asia Pacific regional circumstances. Among them, prospects regarding regionalism and regional institutions in Asia seem pessimistic. However, Asian regionalism was activated following the decline in United States' power and rise of China as a global power, and the international liberal order's retreat became visible toward the end of the 2000s. Furthermore, even under the uncertain situations created by the Sino-U.S. confrontation, regional powers, including China, Japan, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), are promoting their multilateral approach by proposing and advancing various regional frameworks. This indicates that each regional power is adopting the "institutional hedging" strategy to ensure that their individual interests are satisfied and the regional order is comfortable for themselves. This paper verifies that regionalism and regional institutions have become important as measures of regional power for countries' institutional hedging strategies to overcome the challenges posed by the beginning of regional uncertainties and that Asian regionalism is more active today than ever before. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview and synthesis of debates pertaining to the development of city-regions and their applicability to the UK space economy. The purpose is to make links to advance both international academic debates and realpolitik policy knowledge concerns. The paper, firstly, traces the multifarious and at times disconnected academic discussions around the concepts of regionalism, city-regionalism and localism in the UK. Secondly, it considers the contemporary academic debates on the city-region, focusing in particular on those applicable to the current UK policy context. Given that city-regions are increasingly seen as the principal (and often unquestioned) consolidating spatial scale for economic and social development, the paper, thirdly, probes on the silent and missing aspects of the prescribed city-region approach, connecting and contributing in turn to concerns with building inclusive-growth. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is the first regional organisation, globally, to have a Directive on Gender Assessment in Energy Projects. The Directive provides a framework for Member States to ensure that women and marginalised groups in project-affected communities are adequately protected from adverse impacts of energy projects. Being a recent instrument, one may wonder how this experiment will pan out. Drawing from scholarship on regionalism and using social impact theory, this paper adopts a forward-looking approach to consider if the recently adopted Directive will now become practice. We find that ECOWAS has the procedural legitimacy to successfully impact the domestic institutions of its Member States through this Directive – with ECOWAS being seen as a strong and influential institution by its members. However, ECOWAS' consequential legitimacy, regarding this Directive, may be slightly weakened by its lesser 'immediacy', i.e. its level of interaction with ministries, departments and agencies, when compared to other actors such as international financial institutions. The paper concludes with the recommendation for stronger regional oversight and guidance from ECOWAS. We also call for action to financial institutions, private investors and community-based organisations to make gender assessment in energy projects a consistent and meaningful practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interdisciplinary 'infrastructure turn' has emerged over the past 20 years that disputes the concept of urban infrastructure as a staid or neutral set of physical artefacts. Responding to the increased conceptual, geographical and political importance of infrastructure – and endemic issues of access, expertise and governance that the varied provision of infrastructures can cause – this intervention asserts the significance of applying a regional perspective to the infrastructure turn. This paper forwards a critical research agenda for the study of 'infrastructural regionalisms' to interrogate: (1) how we study and produce knowledge about infrastructure; (2) how infrastructure is governed across or constrained by jurisdictional boundaries; (3) who drives the construction of regional infrastructural imaginaries; and (4) how individuals and communities differentially experience regional space through infrastructure. Analysing regions through infrastructure provides a novel perspective on the regional question and consequently offers a framework to understand better the implications of the current infrastructure moment for regional spaces worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the divide between ‘new’ and ‘old’ regionalisms in international politics is increasingly seen as exaggerated, but that the conceptual implications of this non-difference have yet to be taken seriously. The attempt to build a new body of theory to explain and describe recent forms of region-building—the ‘New Regionalist Approach’—is mistaken, and falsely sets up classical integration theory as an Other in an act of auto-definition. Likewise, the acceptance of this divide by EU scholars—whether explicitly or by default—hampers their own attempts to elaborate useful theory. The two areas of study are properly understood not as separate paradigms, but rather as sub-divisions of the same one. Thus, a fruitful way to harness the insights of scholars in both sub-fields of study is to undertake an explicit programme of comparative research based around an agreed set of independent variables, research issues and hypotheses, all stemming from a common definition of the dependent variable. The paper sets out a definition and typology of this dependent variable—‘regionalisation’—and argues for a reflexive approach to the elaboration of a conceptual framework for its study. The paper finishes with a discussion of suitable independent variables and four tentative hypotheses to be explored in empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the developmental trade-offs involved in multilateral versus regional-bilateral strategies of integration into the international economy. I contrast the regulations that guide policy in the areas of trade, investment, and intellectual property in the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in regional-bilateral agreements between the US and developing countries. Both strategies of integration feature similar trade-offs, in that developing countries gain increased market access and opportunities for specialization in exchange for diminished space for use of industrial policy instruments to create new productive capacities. However, the trade-offs are intensified in the case of regional-bilateral agreements: countries receive more market access, but in exchange make significantly deeper concessions regarding the management of inward investment and intellectual policy. I argue that countries whose integration into the international economy is guided by their obligations as members of the WTO still have opportunities to implement industrial strategies that are designed to alter comparative advantages and achieve upward mobility in the international economic order, but the obligations under the regional-bilateral strategy greatly circumscribe these options. The paper thus points to the need for new terms of reference in the debate over ‘policy space’ in the international political economy. In analyzing contemporary development strategies, the most useful contrast is not between the alternatives that countries have under the WTO and the alternatives that countries had in the past under the WTO's predecessors, but between a constraining multilateral environment and even more constraining regional and bilateral environments that condition increased market access on the sacrifice of the very tools that countries have historically used to capture the developmental benefits of integration into the international economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crises of the late 1990s marked an intellectual watershed for the global economy, and also for regionalism as the Janus face of globalization. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the theory and practice of regional cooperation and integration may evolve along different lines to how it was understood for most of the second half of the twentieth century. In East Asia, in particular, this will mean that the relationship between multilateralism and regionalism will change. The 'East Asian' region will become an increasingly important domain within which to explore enhanced protection against financial crises. What we might call 'monetary regionalism', sceptical western voices notwithstanding, is now firmly on the regional agenda in East Asia. Within conventional political economy, the theory and practice of monetary regionalism is not as easy to understand as traditional, trade-driven, regional integration. Thus one aim of this paper is to outline a theory of monetary regionalism and demonstrate the degree to which it represents a break with understandings of the regional project in East Asia prior to the late 1990s. From its start in 1989, APEC claimed to be a new type of regionalism. The promise was that APEC would promote open regionalism. APEC did not achieve this goal. Nor did it provide support to its Asian members during the financial crises of the late 1990s. At the same time, more traditional (what we might call Balassian) understandings of trade-driven regional integration are showing signs of decreasing importance. There is a growing appeal to trade co-operation, but this is notably an increasing interest in bilateral preferential trading arrangements. This leads to a complex picture of competing regional initiatives across the economic policy spectrum. The paper locates these initiatives in the wider context of the growing politico-economic dialogue between Southeast and Northeast Asia that has developed via the ASEAN+3 process since 1997. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional views of regions and regionalism begin with geography, history, language or other categories of organization. In this article, I offer a new(?) concept: the colonial region and its concomitant sentiment of colonial regionalism. The colonial region is one formed under colonial rule to suit administrative needs. It may directly encompass some form of pre-existing region, or it may cobble together a variety of smaller areas—some perhaps regions of their own, others not—into one greater region. A colonial region is thus an artificial one, not necessarily taking into account local realities. Many of the presidencies, provinces, and princely states might thus be considered as forms of colonial regions. Such regions often have long lives, and over time, inhabitants within a colonial region come to take on a sense of identity and pride in that region. This article examines colonial regionalism in the Madras Presidency along the axes of pride in physical and human assets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines a neglected dimension of the debate about post-national citizenship by focusing on the articulation of citizenship demands at the level of the region. More specifically, it analyses the pressures for, and the constraints on, the project of social citizenship within Mercosur. Drawing on primary research in Argentina, the article identifies a number of initiatives that attempt to infuse Mercosur with a social agenda. I argue that the significance of these initiatives is that they represent the first coherent attempt to articulate a citizen-centred model of new regionalism in Mercosur. But I also suggest that a formidable combination of obstacles lies in the path of this alternative project of regional governance. Finally, I explore the consequences of excluding issues of citizenship, rights and welfare from the agenda of regionalism, highlighting in particular the possibility of societal rejection if region building remains empty of social meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a non-territorial reading of a politics of place. Focusing on the politics of contemporary regionalism, it argues that globalisation and the general rise of a society of transnational flows and networks no longer allow a conceptualisation of place politics in terms of spatially bound processes and institutions. The second part of the paper outlines an alternative politics of place that works with the varied distanciated geographies that cut across a given region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a broad introduction to the special issue and examines the main contours of regional governance in the Asia Pacific. It suggests that prevailing theories of regional co-operation in the Asia Pacific fail to pay due heed to the manner in which regional integration is rooted in domestic coalitions, economic strategies, and state forms that prevailed in the boom years of the 'Asian Miracle'. The paper then goes on to argue that the collapse of the developmentalist project has given way to the new regulatory state, which in turn spawns new forms of regulatory regionalism that place a heavy accent on policy co-ordination and harmonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) has conventionally been explained as a project of open regionalism adopted by the asean member governments to attract foreign direct investment to the region through the 'carrot' of the single regional market. Yet, when the same governments incorporated an investment liberalisation component programme within the AFTA project in 1998, they opted to accord full national treatment and market access privileges to foreign (non-asean) investors at least 10 years later than to domestic or asean national investors. Although member governments removed this particular discriminatory clause in September 2001, the fact that a distinction between foreign and domestic investors was adopted and maintained for a three-year period is puzzling given AFTA's acknowledged role as a magnet for foreign investment. Although AFTA is clearly a response to the pressures of globalisation, the available theoretical models of the relationship between globalisation and regionalism are unable to account for this empirical anomaly because they do not make a distinction between foreign-owned and domestic-owned capital. This paper advances the notion of 'developmental regionalism' as a way to incorporate domestic-owned capital in analysing the globalisation-regionalism relationship, which allows for a more robust explanation of the empirical puzzle outlined above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances the argument that moves towards regional integration need to be understood as 'regional governance projects' undertaken by domestic actors and coalitions. Regional political projects--such as open regionalism--have roots in domestic structures, and it is this which defines the broad configuration of the regional political economy. On the basis of this framework the paper suggests, first, that the strategy of open regionalism was contingent on a particular configuration of power and interests in the domestic and external economy (embedded mercantilism). Second, this system of embedded mercantilism depended on a set of domestic coalitions between tradeable and non-tradeable sectors of the economy. The non-tradeable sector in Southeast Asia was entrenched within a particular system of political patronage. Third, the Asian crisis and other structural changes in the international economy have made these domestic coalitions less sustainable, thereby creating opportunities for new forms of regional governance projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the historical tradition of inter-municipal cooperation in several regions, the Italian policy maker has for the first time decided to oblige small municipalities to co-manage their basic functions. Although controversial because of its overly top-down logic, this provision is driving a “new” era of inter-municipal cooperation in Italian regions: around 70% of Italian municipalities must choose between a municipal union and a covenant in order to manage these functions. Regions can direct their municipalities towards different forms of inter-municipal cooperation with the use of monetary incentives, regulatory restrictions or persuasion. The paper develops an analytic framework to explore this process in two regional cases. The analysis highlights that despite the national constraints, the different regional strategies are increasingly conditioned by the legacies of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is concerned with a recently formed regional organisation called the Group of Temperate Southern Hemispheric Countries on Environment (the Valdivia Group) and its attempts to devise common environmental strategies on a range of issues such as biodiversity, climate change and ozone depletion. It is suggested, however, that this organisation and other elements in the southern hemispheric regional agenda are problematic because of two assumptions: first, that the state is the principle agent in the creation and maintenance of regional contact and agreement and, second, that the different priorities of member states such as Australia and Chile can be subsumed within a broader post-cold war regional agenda. There appears to be little scope for NGOs and other non-state organisations to contribute to these regional debates. Using the examples of climate change and the illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing of the Patagonian Toothfish, the paper concludes that southern oceanic regionalism remains fraught with contradiction and difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dramatic economic growth in the Asia Pacific has given rise to a both a scholarly and policy oriented debate about the most appropriate organizational form within which any dialogue over the nature economic policy coordination in the region might take place. The most visible exercise in regional economic dialogue over the last few years has been via the evolution of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC). APEC's increasing international profile does not, however, pass uncontested. Some states, and most vocally Malaysia, exhibit a preference for a more 'Asian' and less Pacific' form of regional economic dialogue via the putative East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC). This paper examines APEC and the EAEC as exemplars of two competing conceptions of regional economic cooperation. The paper demonstrates that enhanced economic dialogue in the Asia Pacific cannot be understood simply in rationalistic, utility maximizing terms. Questions of politics, culture and identity are also shaping up to be extremely important. The outcome of this contest over how an understanding of 'region' in the Asia Pacific will be constituted over the long term is yet to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical regionalism emerged as an architectural concept during the early 1980s. For leading theorists such as Kenneth Frampton, critical regionalism was an "architecture of resistance" seeking "to mediate the impact of universal civilization" and "to reflect and serve the limited constituencies" in which it was grounded. This paper examines critical regionalist rhetoric, particularly its emphasis on resistance, as a theoretical construct that inadvertently marginalized and conflated the diverse architectural tendencies it championed. The reception of Mexican architect Luis Barragán as a critical regionalist is highlighted to analyze some of critical regionalism's most problematic assumptions, implications, and effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the complexities of establishing sustainable peacebuilding strategies in southern Africa within 'new' security/'new' regionalism contexts. Building peace requires initiatives based upon longer-term developmental, political, economic and social objectives. If peacebuilding is to fulfil its potential for the advancement of 'human' security in Southern Africa, these criteria will best be met through regional solutions. Yet, the new regionalism is multi-dimensional and the various regionalist forces are not necessarily compatible. Although national governments have made some efforts toward the development of a regional security complex, strong statist and realist tendencies persist at official levels and regionalist pressures within civil societies as well as by external actors tend to be mixed and often contradictory. Apart from a widespread recognition in South Africa of the need to give a bottom-up perspective on the question 'who is security all about?', there has been a growing recognition throughout the region as a whole of the desirability of a regional dimension to the security referent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Group politico-territorial identities are potent realities in our fragile world, yet geographers have all but ignored them. Elements and processes involved in recognizing such territorially bound identities are discussed, with a stress on questions of scale and perception. The “legitimacy” of a group politico-territorial identity depends upon the scale of abstraction and upon the definer's perspective. The main problem lies in defining nation. At one level of abstraction, a nation is only a regionalism, yet many groups accept the concept of nation as fact. To appreciate the interplay between these points, several related concepts are also discussed. Some problems connected with group allegiances and orientations are identified. The paper concludes by briefly identifying different responses to the question of whether groups with distinct territorially based identities should have the right to separate territorial and political independence and by challenging geographers to become aware of such identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the address given by the author during the general session of the Midwest Sociological Society's 25th anniversary meeting on April 13, 1962, in Des Moines, Iowa. It discusses the author's experience with the society and his participation in its previous annual conferences. During his term as secretary of the society he has observed the changes in the structure and the functions of the society since its reorganization in 1937. The most important phenomenon having implications for a regional society is the decline in regionalism of American sociology. Regionalism, in the sense that it existed in 1937 has disappeared. The birth of the society have a significant impact on the origins of modern American sociology. The educational institutions established by notable members of the society have contributed to the production of doctor of philosophy degree in sociology.

Already in 1994, Baldwin predicted the formation of the ‘hub-and-spokes’ model to describe the outcomes of economic integration across the European Union (EU) implying marginalization of the new EU member states. We examine the validity of this hypothesis by putting an emphasis on Visegrad group of countries (The Visegrad four (V-4): Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) and investigate the impact of the European integration scheme on their export performances. To conduct the analysis, we estimate the augmented gravity model for the panel data of the exports of V-4 with the rest of the world by employing pseudo-Poisson maximum likelihood estimator. Estimation results do not favour the creation of the ‘hub-and-spokes’ model, but rather demonstrate that integration within the EU was quite beneficial for V-4 without giving the origin neither to their peripherization nor to the loss of markets of the natural trade partners. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Past contributions stress that international ties in the form of foreign workers and international collaboration enable firms to be present in international markets by providing access to diverse knowledge, and professional and social networks. These mechanisms have, however, not undergone the same empirical scrutiny for firms in intermediate and peripheral regions. If firms in more peripheral regions are able to tap into the global economy using international channels, this has important implications, for example, for the localization decision of firms. The empirical analysis builds on linked employer–employee data (LEED) merged with community innovation survey (CIS) data. The results demonstrate that there is a positive association between international ties and international market presence for firms in core, intermediate and peripheral regions, demonstrating that peripheral regions are not detached from global processes. There are, however, slight different patterns observed, for example, indicating that different collaboration partners are used in order to reach international markets for firms in core, intermediate and peripheral regions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The existing literature on convergence in Canada largely ignores the underlying geographical dimensions of regional disparities. By using income measures developed from census micro-data files to analyze patterns of convergence across census divisions, we show that regional disparities are increasingly clustered across the Canadian space-economy along (1) East–West and (2) urban–rural gradients. Rural census divisions in the Eastern provinces, in particular, are showing increased signs of distress in terms of differences in levels and growth rates of incomes with other regions in the country. Such findings have important policy implications which are briefly discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The European and African experiences of integration have followed different historical trajectories. However, Africa's approach to regionalism seems to be dominated by European conceptions in two areas: political and institutional. From an institutional perspective, a number of European Union and African Union institutions bare certain similarities. Do these institutional similarities represent traceable evidence of the diffusion of regional integration from the European Union to the African Union? This article answers this question using a process tracing methodology within a policy transfer and diffusion framework. It tests for evidence of diffusion haven occurred through conditionalities (incentives) offered from EU support for Africa's continental integration as well as for lesson drawing and emulation by the AU. It finds no traceable evidence of diffusion from the EU to the OAU/AU between 1963 to 2003 and concludes that normative emulation is the most probable cause of the institutional similarities between the EU and AU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mainstream discourses on the Indo-Pacific have gained momentum over the last fifteen years or so. Since 2007, when India and Japan began sharing strategic assessments after China's enunciation of its "String of Pearls" strategy, military-strategic references to the construct dominated scholarly and policy discussions. This article is an analysis of these discourses, from the perspective of Southeast Asia. Specifically, the discussion suggests that the Southeast Asian roots of the Indo-Pacific construct predate 2007. They prioritise oceanic connectivity and diplomatic engagement across maritime spaces, embodied in the Southeast Asian concepts of nusantara and bebas-aktif. The small states of Southeast Asia had already conceived of one contiguous Indian and Pacific oceanic space within the context of decolonisation, Third World emancipation, and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This article suggests that these conceptual maps remain muted in mainstream discourses on the Indo-Pacific. It also highlights the Eurocentric nature of discourses on regionalism and geopolitics, which tend to silence Southeast Asia's role in concept-building. The analysis concludes that discourses about the Indo-Pacific region would be more informed by Southeast Asia's strategic vision and perspectives on connectivity, which could in turn, contribute to more productive policies on peaceful engagement in region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the 2015–2016 migration crisis, the European Union established the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa that aimed 'to address the root causes of instability, forced displacement and irregular migration and to contribute to better migration management.' This article questions the logic of this approach to migration management by asking whether African regions can 'better manage migration.' The article examines the normative bases of migration policies amongst the African Union (AU) and six regional economic communities (RECs), as well as the normative bases of the development strategies pursued by the AU and these RECs. The article proposes normative policy coherence for development as an approach to better understand the relationships between regional integration, sustainable development and migration management in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses articles in the issue on topics including geopolitics, regionalism and migration; mobilities and transnationalism; and migrant integration in South Africa.

The article presents comments of William Bunge, a geographer on an article by geographer David Grigg regarding regionalism, and the reply provided by Grigg to these comments. According to Bunge, locational variance is not only reduced by reducing the region's size and increasing its compactness as mentioned above, but also by increasing the region's contiguity. In his reply, David says that, he is sorry if Bunge feels that his reference to Bunge misrepresents Bunge's views on the uniqueness, or otherwise, of locations.

Regional identities have periodically asserted themselves in Indian politics, both before and after Independence. The intensity of this regionalism has, however, tended to vary quite substantially from state to state and over time, ranging from a somewhat benign influence on state politics to demands for secession. These differences are typically explained in terms of specific local political conditions. While the local is undoubtedly important, this article argues that a larger theoretical explanation is also possible: Once we recognize that regionalism operates in multiple spaces, it becomes evident that the way these spaces are experienced has its influence on the practice of local politics. The article goes on to match its theoretical expectations with the politics of regionalism in the neighboring south Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central argument of the article is that West Bengal’s regionalism is a two level game. The state’s predominant regionalism is financial, set in antagonistic terms vis-à-vis the Centre. This financial or economic regionalism is paradigmatic to West Bengal. The tragedy of Partition; exceptional sensitivity to any prospect of further loss of territory; a sense of betrayal and helplessness; blaming others rather than engaging in critical introspection about its secular decline as a front ranking industrial state; and the political dominance of the middle class espousing a so called “bhadralok” identity are pivotal factors in explaining the relentless dynamics of West Bengal’s financial regionalism, regardless of the party in power. West Bengal has constructed a sub-textual identity raised on soft Bengali nationalism bereft of overt and exclusivist cultural markers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The democratic institutions face the challenge of having to address regional demands without being pulled and swept away by them. While at one level the State prefers to distance itself from conceding to regional demands, at another, large parts of the Northeast get regionally reorganized and configured without the State having done it — through the use of wanton violence mostly by non-State actors—a phenomenon we describe as “virtual regionalism”. As the new developmental initiatives undertaken since the 1990s start being perceived as a threat to people’s lives and their very existence, ethnic and regional demands are increasingly giving way to a concern for home, for life, and the imperative necessity of shared existence with neighbors who are not necessarily the members of the same ethnicity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article revisits the early twentieth century to rethink the forces that shaped discourses surrounding political community—specifically the political community in its regional articulation. As we begin to look at the particular ways in which the discourse of rights and political representation have emerged at the regional level in post-independence India, we begin to get a sense of the unique social, cultural, and political dynamics that constitute the region distinct from the dynamics of nationalism and national identity. Specifically, I examine the dynamics of a new discourse of politics in twentieth-century south India, primarily in the Telugu-speaking districts of the Madras Presidency and the princely state of Hyderabad. With the institution of representational bodies/institutions at the regional level, the extension of the franchise and the rise of a public politics based on liberal ideas of public reason, and debate at the turn of the twentieth century, we witness the emergence of the region as the site of a distinct set of political dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction outlines some major ways in which regions and regionalism have been defined. It provides a brief overview of the contents of this special edition of India Review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to account for the erratic patterns of conflict and cooperation observed in MERCOSUR since 1995. It argues that the marked deterioration of trade and diplomatic relations between Argentina and Brazil in the late 1990s and early 2000s is best explained in reference to domestic political constraints on inter-state cooperation. Two domestic-level dynamics shaped the national preferences for regional cooperation of Argentina and Brazil: state-society relations and intra-state cleavages. The recurrent instances of defection in the late 1990s reflected not only societal pressure but also the macroeconomic and political calculations of national policymakers. Tension among different state agencies sharing power over regional policy-making further undermined the coherence of member states' behavior toward their regional commitments. This 'second-image' explanation of conflict in MERCOSUR is illustrated with case studies of three major trade disputes between Argentina and Brazil: the 1995 automobile sector crisis, the 1999 footwear industry dispute and the 2001 conflict over the common external tariff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dollar dominance in East Asia has depended on its regional support. Japan's supportive policy toward the dollar, however, shifted in the late 1990s as the Japanese government began to address the region's heavy dependence on the dollar, which was regarded as one (but an important one) of the causes of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (AFC), by promoting the use of the yen in the region and regional monetary initiatives. Despite emerging signs of those challenges, Japan's domestic resistance and the region's power rivalry between Japan and China still makes the dollar the currency of choice in the medium term future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Tribunal de las Aguas de Valencia of Spain. It examines the tribunal as a minor jurisprudence, a unique form of justice, and as a communal and transparent due process. It also notes on the history of the court and compares it with the Inquisition tribunal which shares a geographic jurisdiction. It argues on the issue that the tribunal exemplifies the version of Peter Goodrich of a minor jurisprudence for the ability of the tribunal to survive the monarchical control and remain honest with the community.

Projected economic growth for China and India presents considerable opportunities and dilemmas for the African region, especially for human development, rights and security around its own growth centre, South Africa. This article juxtaposes a set of overlapping perspectives - emerging economies versus nics, fragile versus developmental states, new regionalisms, resource conflicts and new South - South relations - to analyse the present and prospective implications for sub-Saharan and South African development. Sustained Chinese and Indian growth may present opportunities, even windfalls, for some countries, companies, classes and sectors on the continent but not for all. This opens up a number of fundamental questions in terms of an expanded research agenda. Will Chinese and Indian multinational corporations and supply chains operate similarly or differently from familiar Anglo-American ones? Will civil societies within and diasporas around India and China affect their respective transnational relations? And will African regional institutions be able to moderate any negative impacts from these changing dynamics? Recent review articles have suggested that international relations (ir) in Africa is 'different'. But what is neglected is how the emerging relationship with China affects this assertion. The article concludes with reflections on implications for development policy and theory arising from 'drivers' such as China, India, and South Africa at the start of the new century. Our thesis is that, given growing divergences in Africa to sustain resource extraction, the emerging economies have to deal with fragile well as developmental states. Crucial in determining this outcome is whether or not the continent's single 'superpower' can facilitate or mediate this process given its own national interest and human development concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conventional theories in political economy argue that monetary cooperation is more likely in regions with trade interdependence. In practice, however, regional trade cooperation usually does not lead to monetary cooperation. I argue that this disparity results from different political economy logics in the two issue areas. In contrast to trade cooperation, the domestic actor that sacrifices the most in a regional monetary agreement is the government itself, which loses a significant tool for domestic economic adjustment as well as an important political symbol. Thus, monetary cooperation is only likely if there are direct benefits to the government to compensate for its lost monetary control. Benefits to the aggregate economy or to particular economic sectors are usually insufficient compensation. Experience with earlier monetary institutions, however, can in some cases reduce the costs to governments enough to make cooperation feasible. I explore these arguments with two sets of case studies: Central America and West Africa. Central America has had the highest level of trade cooperation in the developing world, but never successfully implemented monetary cooperation. West Africa, by contrast, developed a strong regional currency despite its very low intra-regional trade. West Africa did have, however, experience with prior regional monetary institutions that lowered the costs of new cooperation for newly independent African governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyse the nexus of integration and disintegration processes in the post-Soviet space. On the one hand it considers 'formal' regionalism projects and the reasons for their inefficiency, and explores the real impetus behind the repeated attempts at top-down regional integration by post-Soviet elites. On the other hand, it analyses the bottom-up regionalisation of the post-Soviet space through the investment activity of Russian corporations, and demonstrates possible effects of this process for institutional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the linkages between Mercosur's search for a new agenda and its ambitious external agenda. It argues that mainstream IR theories are of little help to predict the future of Mercosur, and that the bloc's prospects for survival depend on the potential of class struggle at the domestic level to ‘turn the tables’ against neoliberal globalization, opening up the possibility of an autonomous South American strategy for development. Using a neo-Gramscian approach, the article criticizes both the excessive optimism of those who argue that a ‘reconfigured’ Mercosur will be able to endure in the brave new world of globalization and the excessive pessimism of those who argue that Mercosur is just an aspect of neoliberal globalization that only serves to incorporate more thoroughly the Southern Cone countries in the world capitalist system. Without internal consolidation and the strengthening of subregional institutions the external agenda cannot indefinitely guarantee Mercosur's survival, and is no substitute for facing head on the fundamental problems of the internal agenda, the only way of truly ‘relaunching’ Mercosur. In the absence of a serious commitment to do so, external negotiations, and the addition of more associate members may dilute the bloc as a customs union, forcing it to abandon the project of creating an EU-like common market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Significant differentials have been observed between Italian regions in the distribution of centenarians by sex, from two women per man in the south to over eight in certain regions in the north. In order to explain these differentials we studied the evolution of the femininity ratio (FR), using a longitudinal approach to follow the ageing process in two cohorts, and making use of nearly all the statistical data available since the time of the Unification of Italy in 1870. Significant differentials in the FR observed at the age of 100 are mainly due to mortality differentials among men over the age of 60. The high mortality of men in the north and their low mortality in the south are the main explanations of why the FRs are higher in the north and lower in the south. Mortality differentials among women have only a marginal impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. Turkey is a republic that borders on, regularly interacts with, and actively seeks to define itself as a part of neighboring regions. As such, it provides a significant example of how Middle East nation-states are not only affected by globalization but also deeply involved in contributing to the related processes of regionalization and regional (re)definition. Far from a unique phenomenon, regionalism involving Turkey is flexible and multifaceted, profoundly dynamic, and inextricably linked to virtually all aspects of the nation's foreign and domestic affairs. Regionalism in Turkey demonstrates clearly how processes of globalization are not simply economic but also directly implicated in contemporary shifts in national identity and even in the very nature of the nation-state itself. This study surveys and analyzes the constructs and dynamics of regionalism that are shaping the Turkish nation and state, contributing to varieties of transnationalism, and reconstituting the scales at which Turkey is located, both in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ritual provides the forum for both the expression of cultural identities and the articulation of social strategies. Studies that analyse ritual sites and artefacts in isolation fail to recognize this tension fully, and also tend to assume a sharp distinction between 'religious' rituals and 'non-religious' rituals. This article seeks to shed new light on the relationship between power and ritual in Neopalatial Crete (c. 1700-1450 BC), by analysing the distribution of objects of dedication across the entire landscape of north-central Crete. The comparison of the Knossos and Malia regions indicates that this relationship differs substantially in this part of Crete alone. While artefacts common to ritual sites have been found widely throughout the Knossian region, further east they tend to be concentrated at the site of Malia. Furthermore, the ritual sites from the Knossian region fall into distinct categories, which suggests that they performed various roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Beginning in 1999, US policymakers suddenly began to debate the idea of encouraging Latin American countries to adopt the US dollar as their domestic currency. In this article, I show that the US debate concerning the pros and cons of 'dollarization diplomacy' has two interesting historical precedents that help us understand the politics of US policymaking in this area. The first took place between 1900 and 1915 when the US also showed considerable interest in the idea of promoting the use of dollar within many Latin American countries. Then, in the 1940s and 1950s, US policymakers did an about-face and encouraged those same countries to 'de-dollarize'. To date, these dramatic changes in this aspect of US-Latin American monetary relations in the twentieth century have received very little scholarly attention. But I argue that a study of them is useful in identifying what influences US foreign economic policy towards dollarization abroad today. I show how US policy, both in the past and present, has been influenced by: prevalent macroeconomic ideologies, domestic economic interests, and geopolitical concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the impact of democratic transitions in Southeast Asia on regional co-operation, and the relationship between this process and the development of a non-official regionalism. Until now, regionalism in Southeast Asia has been essentially elite-centred and politically illiberal. The emergence of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was founded upon the common desire of its members, which had by then retreated significantly from their postcolonial experiments in liberal democracy, to ensure regime survival. This orientation was further institutionalised by asean's doctrine of non-interference, which helped to shield its members from outside pressures towards democratisation. But with democratisation in the Philippines, Thailand and more recently Indonesia, the asean model of elite-centric regional socialisation has been challenged. The civil society in the region demands greater openness in Southeast Asian regionalism. The article proposes a conceptual framework for analysing the relationship between democratisation and regionalism, with the key argument being that the displacement of traditional patterns of regional elite socialisation has been offset by potential gains such as advances in regional conflict management, transparency and rule-based interactions. But the realisation of a more 'participatory regionalism' in Southeast Asia faces a number of barriers, including obstacles to further democratisation, the continued salience of the non-interference doctrine and the diminished space for civil society in the wake of the 11 September terrorist attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the original framework of 'open regionalism' underpinning the Mercosur is petering out, and consequently the regional governance project in the Southern Cone is undergoing a process of redefinition. The article seeks to understand the nature of this redefinition, and contends that this task requires a re-orientation of some of the prevalent ways in which the study of regionalism is approached. Specifically, it highlights the limitations of an understanding of regionalism merely as a reflection of domestic processes, and instead argues for a greater attention to processes of regionalisation and their complex relationship with both regionalism and domestic political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]