Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin American Quagmire and its Lessons

Since 1960, Latin American attempts at regionalism have undergone distinct phases. More notably, they have tended to diverge across space, gradually giving birth to separate blocs that seem to be tearing South, Central and North America apart. Additionally, within and across these regions several overlapping projects coexist. This article focuses on the dynamics of segmented and overlapping regionalism in order to describe what they look like, analyse how they articulate with one another, and explain why member states have pushed for such a messy outcome. This situation, linked to the evolution of the global context, might be indicating that regionalism in Latin America has reached its peak, beyond which it may be difficult to achieve further progress. Two conclusions are elicited: first, economic integration is becoming a geographically diffused phenomenon rather than a regional one; second, regionalism is still a compelling foreign policy but its causes, goals and outcomes are no longer what they used to be.

Has Regionalism Peaked? The Latin American Quagmire and its Lessons

The chapters in this book were originally published in the The International Spectator, volume 47, issue 1 (February 2012).

Normative regionalism in East Asia

Normative regionalism has been largely overlooked and ignored; and
normative questions concerning regionalization are deemed unimportant,
idealist and irrelevant to Asia. This is mainly due to the domination of
realism, pragmatism and functional approaches, thus inhibiting the substantial
progress of regionalism in East Asia. It is time that scholars and
policy-makers take normative orders of regionalism seriously.
This chapter examines the state of normative regionalism and its impact
in East Asia through an overview of the historical evolution of the
concept of regionalism, the meanings of and variations in Asian regionalism,
and the impact of all these on regional cooperation in East Asia.
It examines the old pan-Asianism, the advocacy of "re-Asianization" in
Japan, Mahathir's idea of neo-Asianism in Malaysia and the ideas of
regionalism developed in Korea and China. This examination provides the
basis for a discussion of the normative order of East Asian regionalism
by addressing a set of questions concerning national sovereignty, nationalism,
democracy and regional identities.
In particular, this chapter will examine how Asian nationalist and statist
normative thinking influences various ideas of regionalism and constrains
the development of genuine regionalism in East Asia.

Balancing act : competition and cooperation in US Asia-Pacific regionalism

While the United States is an important Asia-Pacific actor, its engagement with the region is complex and often difficult. Not only must US regionalism balance the diverse requirements of an ambitious policy agenda, but also US policy norms and priorities often clash with those of other regional actors. This has important implications for the capacity of the United States to provide regional leadership. Recent years have seen growing policy convergence between the United States and other Asia-Pacific actors, particularly in economic terms, but US regionalism continues to feature competition alongside collaboration.

Competing notions of regionalism in South Korean politics

In the past decade, ASEAN has been the primary driver of East Asian regionalism, and Korea has been an active supporter of ASEAN plus Three. Korea has explored the idea of an East Asian Community, and has been relatively open to notions of Asia–Pacific regionalism. The ROK has involved itself comparatively heavily in regional projects as both an initiator and a participant, but its notion of ‘region’ has oscillated between more and less inclusive forms of regionalism. This article examines how competing conceptions of region have influenced Korea's pursuit of regional initiatives. By revisiting historical understandings of Korea's regional identity, we explore the normative bases and material interests which motivate Korean regional initiatives, and assess the impact of its proposals.