Search results for "Regional integration"
showing 10 items of 18 documents
The Impact of Regionalism on Democracy Building: An Examination of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
2017
Since the early 1990s, the world has witnessed a new wave of regionalism and a mushrooming of regional integration organizations, particularly in the global South. Focusing on Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) ranks among the most promising examples of regionalism on the continent. The SADC explicitly aims at building and advancing democracy in the region and its member states as part of its broader agenda on regional development. From a political science perspective, there is general agreement that regional integration and parallel institution building can be useful measures to promote and strengthen democratic rule, since an appropriate institutional “lock-in” impl…
The Southern African Development Community (SADC): An Analytical Overview of Its History, Policies and Institutional Framework
2017
This chapter gives fundamental background information about the history and development of regionalism in Southern Africa and about the current state of the SADC as a modern regional integration organisation. In terms of an analytical overview, Muntschick reflects briefly on the formation, character and objectives of the region’s old regionalisms such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the Frontline States (FLS) and particularly the Southern African Development Co-ordination Conference (SADCC) as predecessors of the SADC. Also, this chapter turns to the new regionalism and provides detailed information on the SADC as an organisation, its member states, key agenda and central poli…
Towards a New European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP): What Benefits of the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTAs) for Shared Prosperity a…
2016
This article examines the problem of the ENP countries’ integration with the EU market from two perspectives: the macroeconomic situation as an integral component of the overall transformation process and the integration with the EU markets, and the political economy of the regional integration perspectives of these countries. This methodological approach serves as a tool for integrating a number of main goals related to the EU’s soft power that require the development and support of civil society in the neighbouring states. This contribution aims to offer insight in the implementation of the regional arrangements, taking into consideration new political and economic realities in the Eurasi…
Regional Powers as Leaders or Rambos? The Ambivalent Behaviour of Brazil and South Africa in Regional Economic Integration
2013
The behaviour of regional powers towards their own regions is often volatile in the developing world, which leads to unstable integration processes. This article argues that this volatility is due to limited intra-regional gains from regional integration in developing regions, which implies that the behaviour of regional powers is constrained by extra-regional economic interests. When regional integration is not in conflict with extra-regional interests, regional powers provide regional leadership. However, when extra-regional interests are in conflict with regional integration, regional powers become regional Rambos. This argument is illustrated with the two examples of Brazil's behaviour …
On the African Continental Free Trade Area
2021
Africa-wide integration projects have competed with step-wise regional integration since independence. This chapter examines the new project of an African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The project’s potential to become an economic game-changer for Africa is analysed alongside the likely pitfalls of the arrangement. We conclude that while a well-staged AfCFTA can resolve a number of critical issues associated with intra-African integration, it cannot replace existing RECs, especially not with respect to negotiating extra-regional trade agreements. It is argued that to avoid undercutting the entire process, the entrenched logic of exceptions and exclusions from tariff liberalization m…
Regional Integration in Trade Theory
2021
Given widespread scepticism in trade economics about the value of RECs comprised of developing countries, the formal theory of regional economic integration is critically examined in four stylized configurations. Based on the overarching logic of trade creation and diversion, the usual diagrammatic treatment of tariff effects is critically discussed in terms of its numerous shortcomings. A single-country and REC-wise diagrammatic treatment of tariffs in the presence of increasing returns is proposed to allow quantitative assessment of the arguably most promising case for South-South RECs. Building on the literature, the cases of full and incomplete specialization within a regional group are…
Sub‐regional integration in the MENA region and the euro‐mediterranean free trade area
1999
The creation of a new Euro‐Mediterranean region in which to build a shared prosperity area requires existing North‐South economic integration to be complemented by South‐South trade liberalization. Trade links among the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries have remained at a very low level. There is room for greater commercial integration, although the scope for an increase in intra‐regional trade volume is limited. Trade liberalization could lead to a relocation of resources according to comparative advantage and to the growth of intra‐industry trade. However, some economic instruments are required both in order to allay political fears and in order to upgrade transport, communicat…
Theoretical Approach: The Situation-Structural Model as an Analytical Tool to Explain Regionalism
2017
This chapter provides the analytical framework and guiding theory for this work. Muntschick develops an innovative situation-structural model to the analysis of regionalism that goes beyond Euro-centric and classic integration theories because it takes the impact of external actors explicitly into account. This—often neglected—aspect is of crucial importance in regions with mainly developing countries that show strong and asymmetric relations to extra-regional actors. Besides offering clear-cut definitions of regions and regionalism, Muntschick draws on insights from cooperation and regime theory in order to specify assumptions and deduce hypotheses about the emergence, institutional design…
Globalization and Political Legitimacy in Western Europe
2018
Is there a legitimacy crisis in contemporary democracies? This question, asked since the beginning of the 1970s, has been currently undergoing a revival (Kriesi in Politische Vierteljahresschrift 54:609–638, 2013; Fuchs and Escher in The Legitimacy of Regional Integration in Europe and the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan: Houndsmill/Basingstoke, pp. 75–97, 2015; Merkel in Krise der Demokratie. Zum schwierigen Verhaltnis von Theorie und Empirie. Springer VS: Wiesbaden, 2015; Wessels in How Europeans View and Evaluate Democracy. Oxford University Press: Oxford, pp. 235–256, 2016; Van Ham et al. in Myth and Reality of the Legitimacy Crisis. Explaining Trends and Cross-National Differences in Esta…
Regional Mobility Spaces? Visa Waiver Policies and Regional Integration
2016
Visa policies today are a central instrument for filtering wanted and unwanted types of travellers, leading to a hierarchy of mobility rights. While there is evidence of a “global mobility divide”, we still know little about the role of regional integration when it comes to the distribution of mobility rights and the (re)structuring of mobility spaces. Against this background, the paper examines the structure of visa relations in different bodies of regional integration (EU, MERCOSUR, ASEAN, ECOWAS, EAC, NAFTA, SADC and SICA). In this article, we compare visa policies in the member states of these institutions in 1969 and 2010 from a social network perspective. While one would generally exp…