To what extent does governance change because of sub-regional cooperation? The analysis of Iskandar-Malaysia.

The research puzzle of this article is to understand and explain the process of Iskandar-Malaysia region building. By doing that the article contributes to the debate around how regions emerge and to what extent states have to adapt to, cooperate with, and compete with them. Within the framework of regulatory regionalism and multi-level governance, the paper aims to address one main question: how and to what extent interactions between state and non-state actors that contribute to produce new (cross-border) regional forms may politically and economically reconfigure states' relations. This is the first study on Iskandar-Malaysia that focuses attention on the sub-national border governance that is shaped by the interaction between Singaporean, Malaysian and Johorian private and public actors and which can lead to an internal transformation of the states involved in the process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]