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The EU and the 'new' regionalism

Q: Of course, the EU is at best a deviant case of regionalism. Why?

Its longevity rules out any claim that the EU was created as a response to global economic upheavals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moreover, compared with other cases of regionalism, the EU is considerably more institutionalized and much more deeply integrated.

5 important questions on The EU and the 'new' regionalism

What is the most obvious explanation for the revival of regional integration (in the mid-1980s)?

The development of globalization.

Globalization is usually thought of as a combination of things such as what?

Heightened capital mobility, intensified cross-border transactions, the multinationalization of production, and the spread of neoliberal economic policy norms - in short, the growth of market authority at the expense of formal political authority.

This debate is very complex, but one line of argument is that regionalism (as represented by NAFTA or Mercosur) is what?

The primary way in which states have responded to globalization. The move to regionalism suggests that states have seen fit to pool resources in order to recapture some of the authority that globalization has taken away - a type of collective insurance against globalization.

Debate exists over the extent to which states actually and effectively lead the creation of regional integration schemes. What is the distinction between regionalism and regionalization?

While regionalism describes state-led projects of institution-building among groups of countries (state-centric), regionalization is a term used to capture the emergence of a de facto regional economy, propelled by the cross-border activities of economic actors, particularly firms. (The question here is whether the formal institutions of regional integration are created to deal with and regulate this emergent transnational economic space, or whether growth of cross-border activity is stimulated by the decisions of governments.)

Of course, the EU is at best a deviant case of regionalism. Why?

Its longevity rules out any claim that the EU was created as a response to global economic upheavals in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Moreover, compared with other cases of regionalism, the EU is considerably more institutionalized and much more deeply integrated.