Regional Integration - Overview

Overview

Regional integration has been defined as an association of states based upon location in a given geographical area, for the safeguarding or promotion of the participants, an association whose terms are fixed by a treaty or other arrangements. Philippe De Lombaerde and Luk Van Langenhove define regional integration as a worldwide phenomenon of territorial systems that increases the interactions between their components and creates new forms of organisation, co-existing with traditional forms of state-led organisation at the national level. According to Hans van Ginkel, regional integration refers to the process by which states within a particular region increase their level of interaction with regard to economic, security, political, and also social and cultural issues.

In short, regional integration is the joining of individual states within a region into a larger whole. The degree of integration depends upon the willingness and commitment of independent sovereign states to share their sovereignty. Deep integration that focuses on regulating the business environment in a more general sense is faced with many difficulties.

Regional integration initiatives, according to Van Langenhove, should fulfil at least eight important functions:

• the strengthening of trade integration in the region
• the creation of an appropriate enabling environment for private sector development
• the development of infrastructure programmes in support of economic growth and regional integration
• the development of strong public sector institutions and good governance;
• the reduction of social exclusion and the development of an inclusive civil society
• contribution to peace and security in the region
• the building of environment programmes at the regional level
• the strengthening of the region’s interaction with other regions of the world.

The crisis of the post-war order led to the emergence of a new global political structure. This new global political structure made obsolete the classical Westphalian concept of a system of sovereign states to conceptualise world politics. The concept of sovereignty became looser and the old legal definitions of the ultimate and fully autonomous power of a nation-state are no longer meaningful. Sovereignty, which gained meaning as an affirmation of cultural identity, has lost meaning as power over the economy. All regional integration projects during the Cold War were built on the Westphalian state system and were designed to serve economic growth as well as security motives in their assistance to state building goals. Regional integration and globalisation are two phenomena that have challenged the pre-existing global order based upon sovereign states since the beginning of the twenty-first century. The two processes deeply affect the stability of the Westphalian state system, thus contributing to both disorder and a new global order.

Closer integration of neighbouring economies has often been seen by governments as a first step in creating a larger regional market for trade and investment. This is claimed to spur greater efficiency, productivity gain and competitiveness, not just by lowering border barriers, but by reducing other costs and risks of trade and investment. Bilateral and sub-regional trading arrangements have been advocated by governments as economic development tools, as they been designed to promote economic deregulation. Such agreements have also aimed to reduce the risk of reversion towards protectionism, locking in reforms already made and encouraging further structural adjustment.

Some claim the desire for closer integration is usually related to a larger desire for opening nation states to the outside world, or that regional economic cooperation is pursued as a means of promoting development through greater efficiency, rather than as a means of disadvantaging others. It is also claimed that the members of these arrangements hope that they will succeed as building blocks for progress with a growing range of partners and towards a generally freer and open global environment for trade and investment and that integration is not an end in itself, but a process to support economic growth strategies, greater social equality and democratisation. However, regional integration strategies as pursued by economic and national interests, particularly in the last 30 years, have also been highly contested across civil society. There is no conclusive evidence to suggest that the strategies of economic deregulation or increased investor protection implemented as forms of regional integration have succeeded in contributing to "progress" in sustainable economic growth, as the number of economic crises around the world have increased in frequency and intensity over the past decades. Also, there is increasing evidence that the forms of regional integration employed by nation states have actually worsened social inequality and diminished democratic accountability. As a result of the persisting contradiction between the old promises of regional integration and real world experience, the demand from across global civil society for alternative forms of regional integration has grown.

Regional integration arrangements are a part and parcel of the present global economic order and this trend is now an acknowledged future of the international scene. It has achieved a new meaning and new significance. Regional integration arrangements are mainly the outcome of necessity felt by nation-states to integrate their economies in order to achieve rapid economic development, decrease conflict, and build mutual trusts between the integrated units. The nation-state system, which has been the predominant pattern of international relations since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 is evolving towards a system in which regional groupings of states is becoming increasingly important vis-a-vis sovereign states. Some have argued that the idea of the state and its sovereignty has been made irrelevant by processes that are taking place at both the global and local level. Walter Lippmann believes that, "the true constituent members of the international order of the future are communities of states." E.H. Carr shares Lippmann view about the rise of regionalism and regional arrangements and commented that, "the concept of sovereignty is likely to become in the future even more blurred and indistinct than it is at present."