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Exploring regional domains: a comparative history of regionalism

FAWCETT, Louis. Exploring regional domains: a comparative history of regionalismo. International Affairs, vol. 80, 2004:429-446.

Defining regions and regionalism Regions, regionalism and regionalization are contested and often fuzzy concepts. There is little agreement on what the terms encompass or on their significance for the theory and practice of international relations. All relate, in subtly different ways, to interactions—formal and informal, deliberate and spontaneous—at the regional level. But what is the regional level? The term is freely used. If regional agency matters, we must define what that agency comprises, and for what purposes it is suited. Understanding regionalism requires a degree of definitional flexibility, and I propose here a multilevel and multipurpose definition, one that moves beyond geography and beyond states. While this may appear outlandish in regions where state-building itself remains incomplete, moving beyond narrow definitions is important since they tend to 4

Jan Aarte Scholte, ‘Global civil society’, in Ngaire Woods, ed., The political economy of globalization (London: Macmillan, 2000), p. 185.

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be self-limiting and to exclude the newer and expanding domains of regional action. For some, the term ‘region’ may denote no more than a geographical reality, usually a cluster of states sharing a common space on the globe. This kind of region may be a large continent, or a small group of contiguous states. For present purposes this simple territorial definition is unlikely to take us very far; we need to refine regions to incorporate commonality, interaction and hence the possibility of cooperation. From another perspective regions could be seen as units or ‘zones’, based on groups, states or territories, whose members display some identifiable patterns of behaviour.5 Such units are smaller than the international system of states, but larger than any individual state; they may be permanent or temporary, institutionalized or not. Another approach likens a region to a nation in the sense of an imagined community: states or peoples held together by common experience and identity, custom and practice.6 A useful, if statist, mid-point is that offered by the US scholar Joseph Nye, who defines a region as a group of states linked together by both a geographical relationship and a degree of mutual interdependence.7 Most regions that identify themselves, or are identified by others, as such share some or all of these characteristics, though often in different quantities and combinations. Regions, though, do not need to conform to state boundaries. They may comprise substate as well as suprastate and trans-state units, offering different modalities of organization and collaboration. Precision in defining the size and membership of a region can be enormously important for some states and actors. At one level, higher levels of cohesion, commonality and cooperation might prevail in a smaller, tightly defined geographical area, or what is often termed a sub-region. At another level, where regional spaces and tasks are contested as we have seen in Europe, South-East Asia, southern Africa and now Central Asia regions can be deliberately inclusive and exclusive, keeping welcome states in, and unwelcome ones out. The history of regionalism shows how regions have been defined and redefined in such selective terms. The South African Development Community (SADC) was conceived to exclude the then apartheid South Africa; the Malaysian-inspired East Asian Economic Grouping to exclude the United States as a major regional player; and more recently different groups in the broader OSCE space have articulated distinctive claims to regionness. In proposing a multipurpose definition, I argue for an inclusive typology that includes state-based as well as non-state-based regions, and regions of varying size and composition. Hence the Commonwealth states may form a region, or the Islamic countries; in a different way, so does the ‘South’ and different southern groupings and coalitions. Examples of non-state actors that 5

See e.g. Kalevi J. Holsti, The state, war, and the state of war (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 142–3. See e.g. Emanuel Adler, ‘Imagined security communities: cognitive regions in international relations’, Millennium 26: 2, 1997. 7 Joseph Nye, International regionalism (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968), p. vii. 6

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operate regionally are the many different peasant, labour or environmental groups in South America. If we are to make sense of the role and scope of contemporary regionalism, and its increasingly non-governmental and transnational qualities, we need both to recognize all these different levels of activity and to identify the different roles that these diverse actors can usefully play. The importance of defining a region becomes obvious when we move to our central concern—regionalism—which implies a policy whereby states and non-state actors cooperate and coordinate strategy within a given region. Here aspects of regime theory are particularly helpful in identifying norms, rules and procedures around which the expectations of different actors converge.8 The aim of regionalism is to pursue and promote common goals in one or more issue areas. Understood thus, it ranges from promoting a sense of regional awareness or community (soft regionalism), through consolidating regional groups and networks, to pan- or subregional groups formalized by interstate arrangements and organizations (hard regionalism). Regionalism thus conceived—as policy and project—evidently can operate both above and below the level of the state; and sub- or suprastate regional activity can inform state-level activity, and so on. Indeed, a truly successful regionalist project today presupposes eventual linkages between state and nonstate actors: an interlocking network of regional governance structures, such as those already found in Europe, and to some extent in the Americas, as demonstrated in the NAFTA process. However, despite a large and growing body of literature on transnational and substate movements, the state continues to play the predominant role in most regional arrangements, and the bulk of the literature on regionalism still focuses on the more measurable institutional forms of interstate cooperation. Certainly, while none would deny the salience of what I have called soft regional processes in helping to shape regional options and choices, it is the hard processes that chiefly interest contributors to this issue of International Affairs in terms of their potential to influence local and international outcomes. The third term I mentioned was ‘regionalization’: it is a term that is sometimes confused or used interchangeably with ‘regionalism’, and I would like to draw out some distinctions here. If regionalism is a policy or project, regionalization is both project and process. Like globalization, it may take place as the result of spontaneous forces. At its most basic it means no more than a concentration of activity at a regional level. This may give rise to the formation or shaping of regions, which may in turn give rise to the emergence of regional groups, actors and organizations. It may thus both precede and flow from regionalism. The regionalization of trade and its consequences are familiar territory for students of international political economy and regional integration. Such regionalization has yielded trade alliances, blocs and formal institutions. In the security domain, regionalization is used to refer to regional responses to 8

See e.g. S. D. Krasner, ed., International regimes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press: 1983), p. 2.

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conflicts that have themselves often become regionalized—in which inter- and intrastate wars spill over borders, impinge on and draw in neighbouring countries and actors, and attract the attention of the international community. These region-level conflicts do not involve only local actors and institutions. In regions whose own institutions are weak or non-existent, we have seen a growing trend towards the involvement of ‘out-of-area’ regional institutions: two recent examples are the engagement of NATO in Afghanistan, and of the EU in South-East Europe and the Congo.9 The importance of regionalization to contemporary debate has been made apparent by the attention it has received in diverse multilateral fora. No longer competing metaphors, regionalization and globalization offer complementary rather than alternative routes to global order. Of concern in the context of this article is the salience of regionalization in discussions in the United Nations and related circles about the appropriate division of labour in the promotion of international peace and security, or with reference to aid, trade and development policy. In this framework regionalization is about developing power and responsibility and devolving them to the appropriate regional level. Post-Cold War international crises—including examples from Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone), Asia (East Timor), Europe (former Yugoslavia) and the former USSR (Tajikistan and Georgia)—have been the scene for diverse experiments in regionalizing peace and security. Indeed, the success or failure of regionalism on the security level has increasingly come to be measured with reference to the ability of regional groups to act as security providers inside and outside their respective areas, to contribute to what has been called an ‘evolving architecture of regionalization’.10 The above discussion was driven by the need to define the terms and scope of regional action. It is not the intention here to focus excessively on definitions, or indeed to be confined by them. Ultimately, regions and regionalism are what states and non-state actors make of them. To make sense of the idea of regionalism, a certain amount of both definitional and theoretical flexibility is required; there is no ‘ideal’ region, nor any single agenda to which all regions aspire. Regions, like states, are of varying compositions, capabilities and aspirations. They may also be fluid and changing in their make-up. Regionness, like identity, is ‘not given once and for all: it is built up and changes’.11 On a practical level, the United Nations Charter is deliberately imprecise and allencompassing in its definition of regional agencies. Any regional or subregional group of which the UN approves may qualify.12 9

See further the International Peace Academy Report, The UN and Euro-Atlantic organizations: evolving approaches to peace operations beyond Europe (New York: International Peace Academy, 2004). 10 Louise Fawcett, ‘The evolving architecture of regionalization’, in Michael Pugh and W. P. S. Sidhu, eds, The United Nations and regional security: Europe and beyond (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), pp. 11–30. 11 Amin Maalouf, In the name of identity (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 23. 12 Danesh Sarooshi, The United Nations and the development of collective security: the delegation by the United Nations of its Chapter VII powers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 1–2, 142–6.

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While regionalism and regionalization are clearly global phenomena, it might well be observed from what has been said so far that their greatest and most durable successes are still to be found in Europe or the North Atlantic area. But I am concerned here not only with Europe and the variety of models it offers. In thinking comparatively and theoretically about regionalism, it is important to achieve a broader analytical and comparative focus, pulling together evidence from different regions and practices. The African, Latin American or South-East Asian, and more recently the Central Asian cases offer insights that Europe cannot: indeed, for those countries engaged in new experiments with different types of cooperation, the lessons from such regions may be more appropriate in the short term. Certainly, in contemplating the various regional phenomena, we must recognize that the make-up of each region under discussion is vital to understanding its prospects and possibilities. In this respect the modified realism suggested by Mohammed Ayoob, combined with a constructivist approach, can be useful.13 We must also consider levels of interdependence, particularly in the areas of security and economics, as well as linkages between different interest groups and the possibilities of functional cooperation; but likewise, shared or divided identities, as well as the nature of states and regimes, are crucial. The last factor is central to any discussion of regionalism, though it would be unwise to discount regions because of regime type or state instability. Regionalism may thrive better in a democratic environment where civil society is relatively advanced, but it is not the exclusive preserve of democracies, as examples from South-East Asia show. Democracy and trade proved a strong combination in the creation of a Southern Cone Common Market (Mercosur); their absence has helped prevent the development of an Arab one, moves to promote a Greater Arab Free Trade Area by 2008 notwithstanding. Similarly, security regionalism has worked better for some areas (West Africa) than others (the Gulf states), and so on. The point here is to discover and develop those functions which particular regional groups are most adept at performing at a given time. It is also appropriate to think of different ways to improve regional capacity; and here there is a role for the international community. The next part of the article reviews the history of regionalism from a comparative perspective, an exercise which helps to illuminate the present state of affairs. It is also salutary to remind ourselves that while for some parts of the world—including those discussed in this issue of International Affairs—regionalism is a very recent and rather shallow phenomenon, there are important antecedents that may reveal the limitations and prospects of current practice.

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See e.g. Mohammed Ayoob, ‘Inequality and theorizing in international relations’, and Michael Barnett, ‘Radical chic? Subaltern realism: a rejoinder’, International Studies Review 4: 3, pp. 27–48, 49–62.

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Regionalism in historical perspective Broadly speaking, regionalism has always been with us. Regions as empires, spheres of influence, or just powerful states and their allies have dominated in different international systems. Regions—like Europe in the nineteenth century—were world leaders, since for those who lived in them, their region was the centre of the world. But in a more modern sense, since regionalism and regionalization are distinguished from other entities, including the universal, and thus represent activity that is less than global, we might profitably start with looking at the international system that emerged after the First World War. The 1920s provide an arena for considering the place of regional groups in the context of a League of Nations system which accorded them legitimacy; the period is also important in respect of its contributions to persisting debates about universalism versus regionalism, sovereignty and collective security.14 A particular lesson of the League, and one reaffirmed today in the United Nations, was that the organization could not act as a key security provider when the great powers reserved enforcement for themselves. Outside the League—beyond functional cooperation, reflected in the growth of international agencies—formal institutions were few (one exception was the Inter-American System) and non-state-based organizations fewer: the Comintern was an unusual example. That any institution could deliver peace and security, provide a vehicle for economic cooperation and integration or promote a common ideology was a novel idea, and one that failed the test of the 1930s. Security was sought unilaterally through ententes and alliances of either a permanent or an ad hoc nature. Economic interdependencies were deep in many instances, but this was not sovereignty pooling in any sense. States called the tune. But the League, like the United Nations later, encouraged states and peoples to think differently about peace, security, equality and development, contributing to a new definition of international relations and a changed normative architecture. Similarly, the experience of the 1930s informed cooperative efforts in the new European institutions formed after the Second World War. Once embedded, such ideas persisted, to be refurbished in the UN era, which in turn came to embrace regionalism more fully. Following lobbying from different sources, notably Arab and Latin American states, the United Nations legitimized regional agencies, offering them, in Chapter VIII, Article 52 of the Charter, for example, a formal if somewhat undefined role in conflict resolution. Regional economic and social commissions were also an early and integral part of UN activity, drawing in a wide range of different actors. In short, the principle of regional action and cooperation was firmly established. The Charter link is important here for the endorsement and legitimacy it supplied and the accountability it demanded. 14

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The relevant article of the League Covenant is Article 21. See Alfred Zimmern, The League of Nations and the rule of law (London: Macmillan, 1945), p. 522.

At one level the possibility of regional action, or of meaningful relations evolving between the United Nations and regional agencies, was curtailed by the Cold War and the composition of the Security Council. But the region as unit of analysis was elevated by the East–West divide, which created an exemplary regional system. With the United Nations subject to evident constraints, peace and security were delivered unilaterally or regionally, through the Warsaw Pact, NATO and related institutions. At another level, the European Community project, built around the idea of economic community, but with security and democratic consolidation as key priorities, became a powerful model. This empowerment of regional actors, despite their dependence on superpower support, and the relative irrelevance of the United Nations, together created an important precedent. The postwar period saw a proliferation of regional organizations—notably ‘panregional’ groups like the Organization of African Unity, the Organization of American States and the League of Arab States, as well as the NATO-inspired security pacts like SEATO, ANZUS and CENTO. Some, like the United Nations and Bretton Woods institutions, spawned a set of related organizations—regional development banks and the like: huge bureaucracies drawing on regional as well as external funds and expertise. Their records were necessarily mixed: some reached an early plateau and failed to thrive, others expanded and survived. The dual challenges of decolonization and the Cold War made coherence difficult and rendered some institutions susceptible to hijack by powerful members or outside actors. These were key years for regionalism, however, teaching lessons not only in economic integration and institutional development, but in balancing power, non-alignment and the development of security communities. Transnational and non-governmental actors, multinational corporations, aid agencies and the like, many with a regional focus, also began to encroach on the international scene, shifting the normative frame of regional operations. For developing countries in particular, regionalism had the added appeal of an ‘independence movement’,15 like the reformist Third Worldism expressed by groups such as the Non-Aligned Movement and the Group of 77. As exemplified notably by the Arab states in OPEC, which raised oil prices in response to the Arab–Israel War of 1973, regionalism was a ‘southern’ issue. There are many parallels today, with the continuing representation of developing country interests in diverse multilateral fora, where ‘contesting globalization’ has become a recurring regional theme. Also interesting from a contemporary perspective was the round of so-called subregional cooperation which took place in the late Cold War period. This saw diverse regional actors in more assertive post-independence mode, seeking new roles for themselves in shaping the local economic and security environment. Changing economic orthodoxy, the example of Europe and a more narrowly defined set of security concerns pushed states into new cooperative 15

Joseph Grunwald, Miguel S. Wionczek and Martin Carnoy, Latin American integration and US policy (Washington DC: Brookings, 1972), p. 11.

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projects, among them ASEAN, CARICOM, ECOWAS, SADC, SAARC, ECO and the GCC.16 Two further organizations with origins in this period but with quite different geographical reach and orientation were CSCE and OIC: the former demonstrating the application of the lowest common security denominator to a still diverse political and ideological regional framework, the latter representing a statist attempt to appeal to a transregional identity: Islam. All of the above groups, whether they aspired to panregional or subregional status, were products of the Cold War era, yet have survived to the present. Many have adapted their agendas and even charters to fit the new economic and security architecture that has since evolved. As we now witness ever more impulses to regionalism, which at times complement and at times contradict older patterns and trends, the lessons of the past remain relevant. The new regional climate If the Cold War proved to be an arena for selective but cumulative regional growth and projects, the period after its end offered new scope and opportunities. Although in retrospect it may appear that many of the older limitations and constraints on regional behaviour had not been removed, expectations soared that the conclusion of the Cold War would indeed offer new incentives to international organizations. Despite, or partly because of, the parallel process of globalization, regionalization has grown in salience. Both the number and membership of regional organizations, as well as interest in what was dubbed the ‘new regionalism’, have grown exponentially. The process appears irreversible, no longer to be dismissed by critics as a mere fad. The regionalism of the 1990s was promoted by the decentralization of the international system and the removal of superpower ‘overlay’.17 Changing regional power balances found expression in new institutional forms and practices. There was also a trickle-down effect from the UN and also the EU in respect of the empowerment and perceived capability of international institutions. The example of the EU generated competitive region-building in both the Asia–Pacific region and the Americas. Economic regionalism was spurred on generally by doubts and fears about globalization and the nature of the multilateral trading order. And the Bretton Woods institutions, despite the reforms they have undergone, still remain inhospitable to all but the more robust developing economies. As regards security, the proliferation of intrastate wars and growing pressure on the United Nations promoted, in turn, further task-sharing with regional organizations, with terms like ‘regionalization’ and ‘subsidiarity’ creeping into the vocabulary of cooperation.18 Successive UN Secretaries General have called 16 17 18

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See further William Tow, Subregional security cooperation in the Third World (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1990). Barry Buzan, People, states and fear (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), p. 208. Thomas G. Weiss, ed., Beyond UN subcontracting: task-sharing with regional security arrangements and serviceproviding NGOs (London: Macmillan, 1998).

for a greater role in this regard, notable among them Boutros Boutros Ghali in his much-quoted Agenda for peace. There, and in his ‘Agenda for democratization’, he has written of the new regionalism not as ‘resurgent spheres of influence but as a complement to healthy internationalism’; and of regional action as not limited to state-directed activity, but extending to NGOs.19 So in many ways the post-Cold-War environment demanded a greater regional awareness and involvement, and was actively promoted by a range of international actors. The larger space that has thus been opened up for regionalism is important both to the more competent regional groups, and also to those regions which lack viable structures, or whose own institutions are weak. If regionalism has expanded to meet new demands and needs, it has also prospered in a more permissive international environment where regions have been freer to assert their own identities and purposes. There is little doubt that most regional actors and groups welcome this development and the opportunity it has brought to increase their voice and representation. For weaker states regionalism has provided a point of entry into a western-dominated order in which their interests are often perceived as marginalized, and also a forum where interaction and agenda-setting are possible. It may guarantee a seat at the negotiating table. These impulses are necessarily poorly developed in regions of the ‘periphery’ where organizations are weak or new.20 But there is growing awareness of the possibility of regional groups influencing developments within their own areas and, over time, contributing to the creation of norms; and there are quite robust examples, from Europe certainly, but also from the Americas, South-East Asia and Africa, to show how this can be done. A lesson here for emerging states that may yet have only poorly developed institutions, or for those that have traditionally relied on the politics of power, is that they cannot afford to ignore the potential of regionalism: and it is a lesson that has not been lost on the states of the former Soviet bloc. Up to a point, engaging in regionalism is just doing what others do, or filling voids left by the demise of former groups. Like democratization, it is a project that can attract aid and development funds. Cynically, regionalism may provide a mere veneer of respectability and legitimacy to traditional state endeavour. In a world where established states are regionally organized, no state wishes to remain outside current trends: hence the interest of an outlier state like China in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Even strong states, which might eschew the limitations and constraints it imposes, like to speak the language and adopt the practices of regionalism.

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Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Agenda for peace (New York: United Nations, 1992); Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘An agenda for democratization’, in Barry Holden, ed., Global democracy, key debates (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 110–13. 20 Bjørn Hettne, Andreas Inotai and Osvaldo Sunkel, eds, ‘Regionalism, security and development: a comparative perspective’, in Bjørn Hettne et al., Comparing regionalisms: implications for global development(London: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 4–5.

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