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This paper examines the interactions between the USA and the expanding ecosystem of East Asian and Asia-Pacific institutions. Concentrating on the period since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009, it analyzes the 'rival regionalisms' that are now mushrooming throughout the region. Critical is the competition between nominally cooperative institutions and continued state-to-state suspicions that handicap efforts to forge regional institutions able to redress the region's most contentious issues. Nonetheless, national mistrust of regional bodies is less evident in areas such as trade and finance where many actors envision the possibility of win-win solutions even as they remain more difficult to envision in issues touching on hard security The paper concludes by exploring what looks to be a new American disengagement from Asia-Pacific regional institutions as a consequence of the presidency of Donald Trump. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kiva is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent years have seen a revival of discussions on American decline. This paper intervenes in this debate by suggesting that there is a tendency towards partial conceptualisations of US power. It suggests a new historical materialist perspective that makes it possible to theorise American Empire as a relational social totality embedded within global capitalism. The paper then analyses the social limits of China’s rise and the integration of East Asian regionalisation into American Empire, suggesting the extent to which world power has shifted east has tended to be overestimated. It also analyses the emergence of Brazil, India, and the BRICS meetings, suggesting these developments have a limited, but overstated, capacity to challenge American Empire. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

While city-regions take on increasingly important social and economic roles, analytical perspectives on their political boundaries remain fragmentary. This paper considers the evolving debates over city-region boundaries in the United States, arguing that the two predominant perspectives (regionalism and public choice) each provide partial accounts of political fragmentation in city-regions. Regionalists and public choice theorists frame the urban question differently, leading to mismatched priorities that are ultimately self-defeating for both camps. Surmounting the conceptual impasse regarding regional boundary change will involve compromise and engagement with the communities who live there, and reflect the practical politics of specific city-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An urban bias is evident in policies and programs addressing housing and community, development issues in the U.S. Analysis of American Housing Survey data comparing non-metropolitan housing conditions to central city and suburban housing conditions indicates a higher incidence of structural deficiencies combined with low housing values, suggesting that non-metropolitan housing offers particular challenges. To explore the obstacles faced by organizations attempting to take up these challenges, this paper offers a case study of local housing needs and issues in the Brazos Valley of Texas. It was found that poor housing conditions, high vacancy rates, and stagnant or declining home values plague large proportions of small-town populations. In addition, it was found that because funding mechanisms are designed to serve urban populations, local organizations struggle to offer a product that meets the needs of lower-income households in non-metropolitan areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper comparatively analyzes processes of contemporary borderlands identity formation in the context of reinforced security and socio-economic integration in the cross-border regions of the Pacific Northwest and the Virgin Islands. Interviews and surveys of stakeholders reveal how narratives of belonging enable the articulation of a pluralist borderlands identity even in the context of re-aligned border security and socio-economic cross-border integration. The asymmetry in the relationships between the United States and its neighbors - Canada and the Virgin Islands - is as integral to security and integration as to expressions of borderlands identity. While notions of belonging in these cross-border regions remain in transition, expressions of localism are already creating a baseline for a pluralist version of transnational identity formation and culture. A tentative official movement beyond dominant notions of US security, as focused on its borders with Mexico and Canada, toward more flexible conceptualizations of perimeter security that have characterized the Virgin Islands, may also assist in the formation of such 'new regionalisms' and transnational borderlands identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper focuses on the resurgence of the regions as protagonists of the process of the state rescaling in many European countries. In the EU countries this process can be seen as a result of a mix of economic and institutional factors, which have been producing an increasing competition between the central governments and the regional authorities. The rise of the multi-level governance and of the so-called Euroregionalism has reinforced the role of the regional scale in the territorial development: on one hand, with new actors like agencies and organizations engaged in the economic development (FDI attraction, place marketing, innovation and learning), on the other hand by the resurgence of “old” actors, such as the regions, in many cases empowered by processes of institutional devolution. The literature has investigated this re-composition of the political space with regard to the “hollowing out” and the “rescaling” of the state. On the base of these theoretical underpinnings, we discuss some empirical evidence from the Italian experience, in order to show whether and how the regional structures are not only “spaces for policies”, but also “spaces for politics”. Over the last decade, the changes in legal framework, the external inputs from supranational levels of government—the European Commission—and the re-territorialization processes have introduced many elements of innovation in the role of the regions. By illustrating the case of the Piedmont Region, we try to demonstrate that the transition towards the region as an active space of politics can be mediated by the sphere of the policies, especially the spatial ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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.

This article situates the current (re)configuration of Latin American regionalism within the broader history of capitalist geopolitics. I argue that modern regionalism, in the post-war period and beyond, is better understood through a deeper historicization of geopolitical dynamics that shaped, and were shaped by, global capital accumulation. From the early regional imaginaries of post-independence Latin American leaders, to the emergence of 'continental history' marked by the rise of the continent-sized island in the United States, the origins of regional institutions forms a more longer lineage than is often thought. The article provides a class-relational analysis of the ISI period, the rise (and fall) of neoliberal discipline, and the resurgence of a new Latin American left in the early twenty-first century. Through the lens of capitalist geopolitics, I offer a potential critical-theory route towards understanding the current conjuncture, and what the future portents for Latin American regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thirty years after the downfall of the Soviet-led communist bloc, the United States-led liberal international order is seen as coming to an end. Policymakers have converged on the need to safeguard the "rules-based order" across the newly coined "Indo-Pacific" region. However, policy and scholarly debates lack clarity about what exactly is to be preserved, and why the terms of the "rules-based order" and the "Indo-Pacific" have rapidly found their way into policy debates despite their contested meaning. Analyzing developments in regional multilateralism, we find that mainstream discourses purport static conceptions of order, which are often conflated with United States-centered trans-Pacific alliance relationships. The ensuing problem of order stems in large part from the fact that multilateral projects for building alternate orders, undertaken since the early 1990s, have remained far below their potential. We conclude that emerging forms of multilateral cooperation across the enlarged "Indo-Pacific" region have partially filled this void. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a “second-generation” rational choice explanation for voluntary regional governance. It identifies the interests that motivate interlocal collaboration and argues that voluntary agreements emerge from a dynamic political contracting process in which benefits exceed the transaction costs of bargaining an agreement. Explanations are presented for how specific community characteristics and formal and informal institutional arrangements reduce transaction costs of information/coordination, negotiation, enforcement, and agency. Based on the logic of this framework, sets of propositions are presented regarding how these contextual factors influence the transaction costs of cooperative actions. Evidence supporting these propositions is reviewed, followed by a discussion of implications of this second-generation rational choice theory for the study and practice of regional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the trends towards regionalism in the economic and security environments of Southeast Asia, then considers the direction in which these trends may lead to U.S. Asian policy. The author begins by providing a brief overview of the strategic environment in the region, followed by a discussion of two proposals, emerging from within the ASEAN, for a multilateral security framework within the region. He also looks into the economic cooperation within Southeast Asia and the future of U.S. foreign policy in Asia.

This article develops a geography of voice to address the ways in which cultures, regions, and nations are imagined, figured, and defined. It adopts Connor's (2000) notion of vocalic space as a starting point from which to explore folk song collecting practices in Appalachia. It develops this in relation to Bauman and Briggs's (2003) postcolonial critique of the status of language and speech in ethnographic theory. Historically, the Appalachian region has received substantial ethnographic cultural study. Working with insights supplied by the collecting activities and subsequent writings of two key collectors—Cecil Sharp (1859-1924) and Alan Lomax (1915-2002)—this article offers a sociomaterial conception of voice key to its affective politics and examines historical theorizations. These are first derived from folklore and ethnography, later anthropology and sociology, and second, articulated with regard to geographies of region and nation. These are then considered in relation to geographer James Duncan's (1980, 1998) critique of the superorganic as an explanation of regional cultural distinctiveness. It concludes by arguing that a geography of voice can contribute to critical approaches to regionalism. An understanding of how vocalic spaces are figured and assembled is key to explaining how culture can be translated through levels of abstraction in ways that can marginalize and disenfranchise the very peoples given voice in regional studies of culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Problem, research strategy, and findings:There are more than 400 U.S. metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) overseeing multiple transportation projects totaling billions of dollars, yet these crucial organizations and their history and current role are generally unknown or confusing to many planning practitioners and scholars. MPOs face major challenges in developing meaningful long-range regional transportation plans, challenges rooted in their history that planners should understand as they grapple with metropolitan planning efforts. MPOs may approve projects and their funding, but disparate agencies and often competitive local governments control budgets and actually build projects. MPOs, moreover, do not fully represent all regional interests and have no control over the local land use decisions that would support less autocentric communities and human-powered modes. I provide a metareview of the history of regional transportation planning and the MPOs responsible for it, describing U.S. metropolitan transportation planning from the early 20th century. Federal legislation in the 1960s first suggested a regional forum for conversations about metropolitan transportation. Federal legislation in subsequent decades made incremental if incomplete progress toward creating a meaningful regional forum, adapting institutions and practices to increase stakeholder involvement as well as the scope of transport planning, yet MPOs have multiple limitations that planners can address. Takeaway for practice:History suggests that MPOs can be a force for regional change. Planners and policymakers could anchor future reforms to MPOs’ existing legal and administrative frameworks. Planners should revisit the membership and voting structures of MPO boards to ensure better stakeholder representation and permit some MPOs to generate and direct transportation funds at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

St Louis staged the third modern Olympics in 1904, an event most historians have labelled as a less than memorable occasion and some have contended nearly derailed the nascent Olympic movement. Consigned to a regional hamlet rather than a global city, the 1904 St Louis games were supposedly a model of how not to conduct an Olympian spectacle. Taking a different perspective, however, the St Louis games had a profound influence on how the United States has staged Olympics. The Olympics have not been held in established or well-known American metropolises but have consistently gone to up-and-coming cities in border regions eager to make national and global reputations. In addition, the 1904 St Louis games were held in a legally segregated city but permitted the inclusion for the first time of African-American athletes in Olympic competition. Race and region provided foundations for American interpretations of the 1904 Olympics and have remained paramount in national memories of Olympian events ever since. From St Louis in 1904 through Atlanta in 1996 race and region have been central themes in American Olympic experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines media representations of immigration in Williamsburg, Virginia, a ‘new immigrant destination’ in the USA. Through a content analysis of coverage in Williamsburg's local newspaper, we explore how reporters, columnists and readers draw on nationally and internationally circulating discourses to produce public interpretations of immigration issues and construct symbolic boundaries between and among in-groups and ‘others’ in the community. ‘National boundaries drawn locally’ captures how media actors use nationally recognizable frames to interpret local issues and define the parameters of community and national belonging. ‘Localized symbolic boundaries’ take their meanings from place-based, cultural understandings, specific economic conditions and demographics in the local setting. Newspaper discussions in Williamsburg distinguish between ‘deserving’ foreign student workers (primarily from Eastern Europe and Asia) and ‘undeserving’, racialized, Latino ‘others’. Our analysis advances theories of boundary construction and holds implications for the politics of belonging more generally in other immigrant-receiving contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

When the talks for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) were launched in 2010, there appeared to be a coincidence of interests between the American and Australian governments in negotiating a high-quality, ‘21st-century’ trade arrangement that would multilateralise the bilateral and minilateral trade agreements that have proliferated in the Asia-Pacific region in the last 15 years. As the negotiations progressed, however, a divergence between American and Australian interests became apparent. Protectionist interests in the United States have prevented the administration from improving on market access agreements in the current preferential trade agreements with TPP partners, thereby undermining the multilateralisation objective. Some of the elements of the US template for 21st-century trade agreements, notably enhanced protection for intellectual property, and the inclusion of investor–state dispute resolution, clash with Australian trade priorities. Moreover, the central role of the TPP in the US ‘pivot to Asia’ has led to perceptions that it is part of a strategy to encircle China: consequently the TPP may force Australia to make the very choice between China and the United States that the government wishes to avoid. 当2010年启动跨太平洋伙伴关系时，在谈判高质量、“21世纪”的贸易安排时美国和澳大利亚政府的利益似乎走到了一起。这种贸易安排会使过去十五年里亚太地区繁荣的双边及微关系多边化。在谈判进行的过程中，美澳之间的分歧却变得明朗了。美国的保护主义利益集团阻碍政府在现行的与亚太伙伴的最惠贸易协定中改善贸易准入协定，因此损害了多边化的目标。美国21世纪贸易协议的模式，明显加强了知识产权的保护，而且包含了投资者—国家争端解决的内容，与澳大利亚贸易优先的考虑发生了冲突。但亚太伙伴关系在美国重心移往亚洲的计划中至关重要，让人觉得就是包围中国战略的一部分。因此亚太伙伴关系会迫使澳大利亚在中美之间做澳政府并不愿意做的选择。 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Professional Geographer is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Does recognition matter for a region as much as it does for a state and a person? This article examines the power of recognition in shaping regional cooperation. Rather than focusing on the behaviours and interactions between member states, which most studies have done, this article introduces a recognition model to investigate how the social practices of a region with non-member entities promote regional cooperation. By viewing recognition as a tradable commodity and an independent variable, the framework illustrates how the contest for recognition permeates beyond interpersonal and interstate interactions to include the struggle for recognition by regions. The model hypothesizes that the extent of recognition accorded to a region has an influence on its development. Drawing on newly released US declassified diplomatic records, this article tests the soundness of the proposed recognition model for regions by analysing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) struggle for recognition in the 1970s. It discusses how recognition was traded between ASEAN and three foreign powers, namely the USA, Japan and the European Economic Community, during the grouping's formative years. The findings suggest that the strengthening of a regional concept is influenced by the willingness of, and the extent to which, foreign powers recognize the entity. The central theme of this article is that recognition plays an important function in the development of a regional concept. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Regional equity has taken off as a field of research and activism in recent years. Within the general field, three important variants have emerged: community development regionalism, in which the main interest is in using regional levers to promote a new form of community revitalization; policy change regionalism, in which the main emphasis is on shifting government rules to better distribute metropolitan resources; and social movement regionalism, in which the focus is on mobilizing communities for collective action at a regional level. Drawing on a series of case studies from across the country, we argue that all these variants have a role but that social movement regionalism may be particularly effective in productively addressing the inevitable tensions and conflicts that emerge in regional equity strategies, including the relationship to business-oriented regionalism, labor–community alliances, and the role of race. We conclude by speculating on the recent efforts of social movement regionalism to scale up, suggesting that this could present an important contribution to a broader and deeper movement for progressive social change in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article attempts to identify the causes of intraregional great power expansion. Using the state-to-nation balance theory we argue that, in many cases, such great power expansion can be explained as being the result of the incongruence within a given region between the nationalist aspirations and identities of the various peoples inhabiting it and the region's division into territorial states. The existence of the external type of such incongruence within a great power (that is, a pan-nationalist ideology) turns it into a revisionist state eager to expand, using all means available, in order to 'resolve' this incongruence. In addition, this incongruence also creates various nationalistic trans-border groups (like terrorists, private military expeditions/filibusters, settlers, etc.). Often these groups try, through various independent efforts (usually in nearby weak states), to achieve these revisionist goals as well, thus complementing and aiding the revisionist great power's own efforts. After demonstrating the weaknesses in other existing explanations, this argument is illustrated in the case of the territorial expansion by the United States in the Southwest at the expense of Mexico in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review of four periods and a comparison of three regional institutions provide evidence for how serious China has become about multilateralism with its neighbors in Asia. Approval for multilateralism does not mean that China is ready to endorse strong regional organizations that bind their members, especially when it has reservations both about institutions that could undermine its narrow notion of sovereignty and norms that could support US or even Japanese efforts to impose long-feared universal values. If China calculates that limited multilateralism now provides a variety of benefits, to date its support reflects specific circumstances, not general trust in this format. Focusing on the Six-Party Talks as the presumed foundation for regionalism in Northeast Asia offers a concentrated view of strategic thinking toward the area most vital to China's security. In the standoff between North Korea and the United States we are able to assess the degree to which China accepts working with four or five states and the prospects for its active support, if circumstances permit, for the establishment of a peace and security mechanism through the fifth working group that originated in the Joint Agreement of February 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an exploration into the social history of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania in the early 20th-century, focusing on the cultures of racial violence, law enforcement and regional identity at the time. The author argues that the typical historiographical separation of the North and South regarding social issues and attitudes towards racism and social justice is faulty. Multiple examples are taken from the three states asserting that while the rhetoric surrounding race in the North was distinct from the South their interconnectedness and similarities are more apparent than typically portrayed.

Competitive interdependence characterizes the EU-US relationship vis-a-vis third markets. Each defines success in relation to the other while each also views the other as its key geo-economic competitor in the world economy. CI has developed as the EU has attempted to manage globalization in the field of trade policy by focusing on the multilateral level and then by reversing course and privileging the regional, which in turn has expanded the EU's territorial influence. The reversal occurred largely because the Bush Administration in Washington pursued free trade agreements (FTAs) in a process of 'competitive liberalization'. The US outflanked the EU by negotiating FTAs that favored US firms in third markets. The EU, to protect its own firms, then began to negotiate FTAs itself. Geo-economic competition between the EU and the US is thus key to shaping EU trade policy. [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]

‘New’ regionalism privileges social communication over political ‘coercion’ as a means to motivate intermunicipal, interagency and multiactor co-operation in metropolitan regions. Critics claim, however, that the NR is little more than urban crisis management within increasingly unstable post-Fordist and neo-liberal environments. This analysis of emerging ‘smart growth’ strategies in North America offers a ‘pragmatic’, context-sensitive and critical reading of region-building in ‘advanced capitalist transformation’. Issues at stake involve integral approaches to regional competitiveness, social equity, housing, redevelopment, transport, the environment, public services, etc. As will be demonstrated, however, this more global set of goals is translated locally into action, resulting in highly variegated regional governance landscapes that reflect both specific socio-political and economic contexts and the historical continuity of urban governance reform processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Americans during the interwar years were deeply concerned with the question of modernism's national origins, seeing it as both an unwelcome European import and a product of their own native genius. This article examines some expressions of American architectural discourse during this period, when architects and writers negotiated modernism, embracing, rejecting and continually redefining it. Three overlapping frameworks are outlined: nationalism, internationalism and naturalisation, the latter being a term that implies both a return to nature and a politicised shift in identity. Ultimately, the focus is on naturalisation, and on the role played by a now-obscure figure named John McAndrew, one-time curator of architecture at New York's Museum of Modern Art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the articles presented in the special section of this review is to assess the contents of and experience with "new type" of Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) with a view to determining whether and under what conditions the new regionalisms of the two major players United States and the EU will be competitive or complementary and in particular how these two regionalisms will be in support of, or conflicting with, multilateral trade regime under the World Trade Organization (WTO) rule system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author relates tenets of urban regime theory to the major elements of new regionalism. He develops a framework of government and private sector structures and factors that facilitate the development of regional governing regimes. He categorizes these structures and elements as high, medium, or low according to the extent to which they facilitate or hinder the development of regional regimes. This framework is used in an analysis of new regionalism in the Pittsburgh and Chicago regions. The author concludes that the Pittsburgh region's private sector regime development capacity is in the high category while its government capacity is in the medium category. The Chicago region's private sector regime development capacity is placed in the medium category while its government sector capacity is judged to be in the low category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent policy response to sprawl that is gaining popularity is the preservation of open space by municipal governments. This article examines the patterns of open space policy adoption using a sample of 344 suburban governments in the Philadelphia area. The empirical evidence shows that newer, high-status communities with more loss of land to development are more likely to opt for open space preservation as a policy avenue. The evidence of independent effects with respect to community age has implications for regionalism. Orfield has argued that older suburban communities are the swing vote for moving metropolitan areas toward regionalism. If the middle-aged suburbs in the Philadelphia area are needed to build a pro-regional coalition, their apparent preference for open space preservation may limit possibilities for regional reform. I argue that open space preservation on balance poses a threat to the potential for regional government by further entrenching the municipally based institutional structure of the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California is home to a long tradition of direct legislation, stretching back to 1911. Since then, more than 70 environmental policy measures have been placed on the statewide ballot. The vast majority of these measures have been concerned with natural resource (wildlife, land, water) management. Drawing on county-level returns, electoral returns, and surveys, this article uses ecological inference and logistic regression to show demographic and partisan patterns of support for environmental measures. Despite controls for various demographic and partisan characteristics, spatial differences in voter approval persist. [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]

The study of regionalism has long been an important element of scholarly work in both Canada and the United States. The study of regionalism and political culture in the United States is meaningful because the very expression of social, economic, and political differences along geographic lines is considered to be part and parcel of American political life. The province of Alberta and the state of Idaho lie within the Mountain West region of North America and hence, should share a number of cultural, social, and political similarities that bind them together. Spurred on by the already substantial trade links between Alberta and Idaho — in the year 2000, Alberta's exports to Idaho were over $252 million, and Idaho's exports to Alberta were over $143 million — Alberta Premier Ralph Klein agreed to reinvigorate relations in such areas as agriculture, forestry, transportation, trade, technology, education, tourism, and the environment. Despite these intergovernmental efforts, the fact remains that the people of Alberta and Idaho — including their governmental leaders — know little about the other's history or political culture. The province of Alberta and the state of Idaho, while vastly different in many ways, possess commonalties that might surprise many in both locations. Both have a small proportion of minorities, with Alberta's aboriginal and Asian populations and Idaho's Hispanic population steadily increasing in size and activity in the public arena. Both Alberta and Idaho are marked by the unique presence of Mormons that was fostered by emigration out of Utah in the 1800s.

The creation of a law classification schedule at the Library of Congress has been under development since the late 1930s and has continued to the present. The law schedules have been published over the past thirty-five years. Class K delineates all laws and legal systems on global, regional, and jurisdictional levels and provides links between historical and religious systems as well. This article also discusses historical and political aspects of the development of law classification. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Summary. Regionalism continues to be proffered as a policy prescription for US metropolitan ills. While many urban scholars discuss the benefits of regional approaches to problem-solving, others question, and sometimes dismiss, the possibility of widespread, comprehensive regionalism. This latter group generally takes one of two perspectives. First, they argue that local autonomy and fragmentation prohibit regional collaboration. Secondly, rational choice theorists claim jurisdiction-centered economic interest spurs intraregional competition and impedes cooperation. Although both perspectives can be criticised as overdeterministic, they appear to be supported by the limited number of examples of comprehensive metropolitan co-operation in the US. This article identifies a theoretical connection and empirical similarity between these views of impediments to regionalism. The author argues that strategies suggested by rational-based collective action theory apply to either the autonomy or competition argument; however, she notes that empirical results raise questions about adopting a strict rational-based model. The author warns against a premature dismissal of regionalism as a viable policy prescription without further research and recommends a promising path for future research on comprehensive regional co-operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the essence of the urban regime theory in regional governance in Chicago, Illinois. Impact of urban economy and economic actors on economic policy; Use of the term new regionalism to define regional governance; Status of the relationship between the city and the suburbs.

A new debate emerged in the 1990s about regional solutions to urban problems. The debate has been carried out overwhelmingly within a welfare economics framework that stresses the economic costs and benefits of regional governance structures. Unlike earlier debates about regional reforms, the new regionalists emphasize not just that more collaborative regional governance structures will improve local services but that they will enhance the competitiveness of regions in the global economy as well. The article surveys the evidence on two propositions put forth by the new regionalists: 1) whether fragmented regional governance harms economic growth; and 2) whether suburbs are dependent on cities for their economic well-being. Neither proposition is well supported by research and even if they were, the author concludes, this would not necessarily persuade citizens to support regional reforms. Research on the economic effects of regional governance needs to be supplemented with research on its political effects. The article concludes by examining the effects of regional governance structures on three core American political values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the politics of regional cooperation in Houston and in Los Angeles, focusing in particular on the role of the state in facilitating or inhibiting metropolitan-wide approaches to urban problems. In both California and Texas, the state can play a significant role in facilitating regional cooperation. However, important limits exist on the extent to which this happens. While generous annexation rules have facilitated regionalism in Houston, these rules are themselves only as strong as the political consensus to use and maintain them. Similarly, regional agencies in Los Angeles have been reluctant to fully utilize their powers in the face of strong political opposition from local governments. Finally, in both Houston and Los Angeles regionalism is more often defined in terms of systems maintenance functions rather than lifestyle functions. The use of state-level rules to promote regionalism may suffer from the same political liabilities as earlier attempts to form regional governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past two decades or more, advocates of the new regionalism have called for the creation of new forms of regional governance in America. These writers have shifted the rationale for regional governance from issues of efficiency and equity that characterized an earlier literature on regionalism (i.e., the metropolitan reform school) to that of regional economic competitiveness. In this article, I examine the diagnoses and prescriptions of the metropolitan reformers and the new regionalists. I offer a definition of regional governance more in keeping with the older tradition of political science and distinctly at odds with that of the new regionalist. Then I present what I believe are the principal factors that make the achievement of regional governance in American metropolitan areas very close to impossible. My argument, as indicated by the title of this article, is that political impediments overwhelm economic arguments for achieving meaningful regional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, the new regionalism was invented because the old regionalism had proven politically impossible to implement. For Canadian cities, provincial legislatures have frequently imposed various institutional reforms many of which are highly relevant to the concerns of at least some American new regionalists. Canadian policy-makers have recently shown great interest in the tenets of the new regionalism, even in places where old regionalist structures have long been established. The Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), the Greater Toronto Services Board, and the Montreal Metropolitan Community are all institutions with which American new regionalists should be familiar. The GVRD has been criticized in Canada for being too weak The fact that the GVRD rests somewhere between the old and the new regionalism is just one of many reasons why it merits more attention from both Americans and Canadians who are concerned with the effective governance of our city-regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the US there is an increasing debate about the nature of urban development, including such aspects as suburban sprawl and continuing central city poverty. This debate is driven by a range of motivations, including concerns about the effect of growth on the environment, quality of life, government efficiency, economic competitiveness, and equity. Several metropolitan areas have developed new governmental and fiscal structures or land use policies to address problems caused by growth, or by inequalities within regions. A detailed case study of Chicago shows how different groups deal with these issues politically. The article concludes with an overview of the policies most likely to be successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an overview of the Regional Coalition's analysis of the United States (US) metropolitan problems and their agenda for public action. History of the US Metropolitan Regionalism; Consequences of suburban autonomy and metropolitan fragmentation.

With the end of the Cold War, it seemed that we had reached the 'end of geopolitics'. Since the mid-1990s, however, the term 'geopolitics' has experienced a revival, and even regional groupings which have so far abstained from any kind of power politics, such as the European Union, have started to claim geopolitical interests for themselves. But it is not clear what constitutes this kind of power politics in the 1990s and what drives 'the West' to pursue geopolitics, directed against what Huntington has labelled so plainly and provocatively the 'Rest'. The article addresses this question by analysing Western capital's need for access to markets in the South and the EU's and US' growing dependence on oil imports. The article will argue that a Western geostrategy based on Huntington's civilisational model would be counterproductive in the long run, manoeuvring the Western states into a situation where these geopolitical goals would have to be enforced by military means instead of being pursued through a strategy of political and economic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT. By crafting regional metaphors, geographers can help the public to understand and expand regional choices. As a metaphor for the United States' Great Plains, the Buffalo Commons stands for a large-scale, long-term ecological-economic restoration project. It has found an attentive audience in the last thirteen years and is in practice springing to life in the region. Comparable metaphors for other regions dealing with structural change are explored in this essay, using as main examples the Pacific Northwest, Detroit, and big cities generally. Metaphors, we conclude, differ from usual social-science tools because they engage the public in forming policy. The most effective regional metaphors are ambiguous, open-ended, and somewhat disconcerting. Keywords: Buffalo Commons, geographical imagination, Great Plains, regional geography, regional metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordination of migration policies is generally understood as a mechanism for improving the management of migration flows in response to new migration challenges or to pressures by public opinion in receiving countries. The analysis of the Regional Conference on Migration offers another interpretation. Such coordination among countries of North and Central America is not so much about controlling flows. Rather, one can look at this process of coordination as a mechanism through which specific patterns of social and spatial relations are being locked into the region. The coordination of migration policies in the RCM constitutes an effort to manage the mobility of capital and labour in an orderly manner. In addition, the coordinating effort serves two other purposes: to attribute specific responsibilities to states, and to depoliticize the issue of migration. Such developments fit neatly with the neoliberal project of integration, with the imposition of particular state-society relations onto the various countries involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategic implications of Asia's economic crisis will be severe. Regional cohesion has been undermined. The Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) has lost status, and regional institutions, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the ASEAN Regional Forum, have been found wanting. Japan has proved to be an unhelpful power and resentment of the International Monetary Fund and the US is growing. China, by comparison, stands to gain in influence. The West's interests are to ensure that key countries - such as Indonesia and South Korea - are not permanently weakened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]