Conclusion – Building Regions from Below: Has the Time Come for Regionalism 2.0?

Abstract

In a changing world ridden with crises and characterised by a general redistribution of power, regional organisations need to reinvent themselves. Equally, the study of regionalism has to reject its traditional Eurocentrism to embrace new conceptual categories in order to describe more effectively the variety of regional processes across the world. Against this background, this article looks at the European project and its current crisis before discussing other regional ‘experiments’ in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which rest on different principles but also manifest considerable shortcomings. The analysis points to the need to look at regionalism with a critical eye, emphasizing the undeniably important achievements but also the hidden threats that a certain model of regional integration (for instance, the classical top-down elite-driven process adopted by the EU founding fathers) can pose to the sustainability of regional cohesion and the adaptability of this model to other areas of the world.

Keywords:

• Regionalism 2.0
• comparative analysis
• new models
• Eurocentrism
• citizen-driven governance

Notes

Thanks go to Luk Van Langenhove from whom the 2.0 metaphor has been borrowed, and who has adopted it to describe the evolution of multilateralism

¹ Katzenstein, A World of Regions.

² Fawcett, “Regionalism in Historical Perspective”.

³ Warleigh‐Lack et al., New Regionalism and the European Union.

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Van Langenhove, Building Regions.

⁶ Haas, “The Study of Regional Integration”; Moravcsik, “Preferences and Power in European Community”.

⁷ For an example, see the debate on “The Road to Europe”, http://www.opendemocracy.net.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lorenzo Fioramonti

Thanks go to Luk Van Langenhove from whom the 2.0 metaphor has been borrowed, and who has adopted it to describe the evolution of multilateralism