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This publication is the executive summary of a white paper that Kansas City Consensus developed on the libraries of metropolitan Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas. The document analyzes the service issues, costs, and political issues that face the KC libraries if and when they consider consolidation or more extensive collaborative arrangements than they now have in place. Librarian readers will find many issues that will face them if they attempt consolidation or more extensive collaboration. The localism that is the basis of so much in public library tradition is examined as a weakness and as a strength. The executive summary of the report is followed by a statement that explains the perspective and work of the Kansas City Consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Abbott Government announced its White Paper review of the Australian Federation on June 28, 2014. Set against this backdrop, discussions of the future of Australian local government may provoke an assumption that its role will be cruelled. However, reflection suggests that such an assumption is misplaced. In particular, when the complexities of regionalism in Australia are considered, the potential role of local government begs revisiting. We argue that local government ought to adopt a forthright position in the current debate, particularly with respect to financial reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the issues raised by the White Paper concerning English regions. Commitment to English regionalization; Expected strengthening and democratization of regional institutions; Direct election of regional assemblies; Modification of existing arrangements; Procedural difficulties.

Drawing on higher education regionalism, this paper explores international branch campus (IBC) initiatives undertaken by one of the largest Russian IBC-exporting institutions, the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU). To date, very little is known about higher education (HE) export-import between the post-Soviet countries. This qualitative inquiry critically examines the Soviet legacy of LMSU IBCs to understand their origins, purposes, and utility as a form of HE export. This paper sheds light on (1) the similarities and differences between six LMSU IBCs and (2) discourses used to rationalise the establishment of LMSU branch campuses. The findings from this paper suggest that LMSU IBCs are established (a) to promote the Russian HE model, (b) to strengthen political and cultural ties with neighbouring countries, and (c) to bolster LMSU's image and brand appeal in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The media has been repeatedly demonstrated to have a large effect on voting behaviour and voter information worldwide, and to be crucial in the establishment of collective identities. Relatively unexplored in the field of regional politics are the effects of media on substate party system divergence and non-statewide party success. This article takes Europe as its focus and demonstrates how strongly regionalized media environments contribute to the development of distinctive party systems at the regional level. I argue that the effects of media works chiefly through the establishment of a 'banal regionalism' and by increasing voter information, thereby boosting issues traditionally associated with regionalist success such as socio-cultural distinctiveness and regional autonomy. The paper demonstrates this through a regression analysis of 69 European 'Small Worlds' and an illustrative case study of the United Kingdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the question of choice between regionalism and multilateralism in trade relations of Central Asia introduced by Pomfret (2005). Our study is motivated by a significant restoration of economic links between the former Soviet republics following Russian accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the creation of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), and the formation of new trade ties with Vietnam, Iran, and Serbia. Above all, there have been substantial commitments made by the three Central Asian republics of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan toward a multilateral system under the WTO rules. To this end, we apply a multi-region gravity model with interdependent trade flows using bilateral trade data of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to study the ex-ante effects of economic integration with various bilateral, plurilateral, and multilateral partners. Our findings indicate the existence of considerable gains if the aforementioned economies would ascend to the EAEU in comparison to integration with China or Iran. We also document the presence of shared economic links between Tajikistan, Central Asia, and Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evaluating regionalism in a glocal lens is important because it reveals the local contexts associated with cross-border endeavors in the global era. This paper seeks to extend existing literature by propounding a metagovernance framework for analyzing the inter-jurisdictional and multi-scalar nature of the concept. The model premised on the territory, place, scale, networks (TPSN) schema outlines regionalism in a glocal lens in terms of entwinements or embeddedness, hybridization, hierarchization, spatialization, temporalization and instantiation. Much of the prevailing literature on glocal regional governance primarily focuses on North America and Europe. To address this gap, a case analysis of a city-region in sub-Saharan Africa (i.e. Accra, Ghana) was employed to empirically demonstrate the proposed conceptual framework. Here, a local context of centralization and public sector-led development based on the state-centric school defines metagovernance as the government of governance. Thus, sub-national foreign relations are shaped by the national context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the engagement of non-state actors (NSAs) in regional migration policy processes in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). It identifies four categories of NSAs – non-governmental organisations (NGOs), civil society organisations (CSOs), academia and the media – as the key actors engaged in regional migration governance processes in West Africa. The paper adopts a social constructivist approach and a multilevel perspective, drawing on interviews, surveys and an extensive analysis of ECOWAS policy documents. The paper argues that invented, invited and instrumentalised spaces for engagement between state and non-state actors in ECOWAS manifest in a complex web of regional and national interests contributing to regional migration governance from 'below'. Regional migration governance from below consists of transnational societal networks characterised by the interactions of NSAs across borders to influence policies and practices at the regional level. The analysis reveals that NSA engagement results in reinforcing regional policies, policy diffusion through regional processes and circumventing restrictive national agendas through adopting innovative regional approaches. These results contribute to strengthening the institutional framework for regional migration governance in West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ernst B. Haas pioneered the formation of European integration studies outside the field of International Relations. The European Coal and Steal Community of 1951 was already more supranational than any existing international organisation to date. Supranationalism subsequently expanded with European integration. In his attempt to account for the supranationalism of European regionalism, Haas had developed his neofunctionalism as a general theory, which could be applied to other regions as well as the global level. EU scholars, in contrast, began to treat the EU as a case sui generis insisting on its unique supranational nature. The paper revisits the question of the uniqueness of European regionalism. Combining Ernst Haas' works on supranational regionalism and liberal nationalism, the EU is approached as a strong form of supranational regionalism that has transformed interstate relations in Europe towards what he called 'cosmopolitan internationalism'. The paper argues that liberal nationalism is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for this transformation. It, however, provides an explanation for the contestation of the EU as a model of liberal regionalism by non-liberal forms of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to understand the socio-political dimension of the political changes in Assam vis-a-vis "regionalism" and its contestations. The Changing contours of regionalism in Assam reflect its distinct character marked by the simultaneous articulation of regional, sub-regional and national identity in a complex socio-ethnic and historical context. The recent political trajectory of Assam bears testimony to the dual challenges facing the forces of regionalism; the presence of sub-regional ethnic identity articulation and the appropriation of regional space and issues by the national parties. Further, the shifting allegiance of ethnic identity-based parties to the national parties is critical to understand the dynamics of regionalism in Assam. Socio-political developments subsequent to the rise of BJP post-2014 provide an interesting landscape to comprehend the complexities inherent in understanding regionalism in contemporary Assam. On a contextual note, the paper also locates the question of regionalism in the ongoing debates of NRC and CAA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This conceptual paper draws on theoretical insights from the concept of discursive opportunity structure. The paper uses a summative content analysis (a comparison of historical records) to demonstrate how discursive opportunity structures shape the multi-level nature of educational governance, which operates at different scales in different regions. Before the Coronavirus (COVID-19) struck, the post-2008 global recession had begun to give way to the 'gated global,' as nations were retreating towards closed regionalism and trans-regionalism as evidenced by an uptick in regional trading agreements (RTAs). This implies that globalisation is metamorphosing as global responsibilities are transferred to the regional level. This paper will use the 15 Member grouping, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), as an example of how political opportunities at the regional level are currently molding national educational agendas. It draws attention to how education is framed horizontally and vertically while illuminating what I term 'discursive educational opportunity structure' in which actors, institutions, and text define, develop, and maintain the dominant discourses. This piece demonstrates how institutional opportunities arise at different levels of the educational system and how their dominant discourses are framed and mobilised by various actors to advance their causes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the trade co-movements and shock spillover across four African geographic regions. Specifically, we were motivated by the very low intra-trade activities in Africa, despite increased regionalism to study the possibility of a country's trade shock being transferred to its trading partners on the continent. Knowing the trade connectedness and shock transmission among African countries will serve as a baseline for the AfCFTA implementation. In our analysis, we considered the four African regional quarterly data between 2005 and 2021 from UNCTAD. The continent was divided into four regions namely, Western, Middle, Eastern, and Southern Africa. We divided the time into pre- and post-AfCFTA periods. The Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) and the Diebold and Yilmaz (2012) models were adopted to determine the trade co-movement and the shock spillover respectively. The results show different trade co-movement and trade shock spillovers among the regions at different times. The trade co-movement seems to be dominant between the Middle and Southern African regions. Further analysis shows the presence of trade shock transmission across all four regions. The Western African region exhibits a sign of the biggest trade shock receiver from the other regions, while the Southern African regions turn out to be the largest contributor of trade shocks to the other regions both in the post and pre- AfCFTA period. The study contributes by sending a signal to AfCFTA implementers that trading on the African continents behaves differently among the various geographic regions. It also provides early warning signal for AfCFTA policy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the emerging regional governance of migration from the perspective of migrant rights activists and their strategies in advancing a rights-based framework in contrast to the 'management' (i.e. control-centred) approach typically championed by states. The key objective is to use the study of civil society activism, through its nodes and networks, to develop a 'bottom-up' approach as an alternative to the dominant perspective taken on multilateral migration governance thus far. Drawing on Regulatory Theory, we conceive migration policy as a dynamic process that occurs at multiple levels involving a broad spectrum of institutional actors. In stressing the importance of the increasingly networked form that policy and political interventions are taking, our paper proposes a nodal account of migration governance which is applied specifically to civil society organisations' attempts to influence governance. Our empirical focus is the case of one key protagonist in the sphere of migrant rights advocacy, the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA), which constitutes the largest network of migrant rights organisations spanning countries of origin and destination across most of Asia. Its central role, as we argue, is that of an interlocutor between intersecting and interacting organisational networks. In this sense, it takes on a 'nodal' function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China grows in international importance and influence, more and more countries worry about how it will behave, and are preoccupied with the hard question of how to tame it. As a middle power Australia has sought ways to influence the thinking and behaviour of Chinese policymakers. The Australian approach to taming China represents an academically puzzling and politically intriguing case, which, unfortunately, has not been studied in detail. The paper has argued that the concept of taming offers significant intellectual advantages in its reconsideration of Australia's China policy and has called for Australian scholars and policymakers, to critically rethink unspoken and understudied Australia's taming practices and policies. To this end, this paper has proposed an experience-based theory of taming as a key research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing inspiration from a Chinese proberb, this paper offers an alternative interpretation of regionalism, with a special reference to its membership. This alternative interpretation provides insights into the exclusionary aspect of regionalism, for which mainstream international relations theories lack a certain efficacy in providing plausible explanations. We hypothesize that a state forms a regional group in which it can be a leader, excluding states that are more powerful than it is. A state values the leading position in a regional group, even in a small regional group. To test the hypothesis, this paper investigates regionalism launched in Asia during the second half of 20th century, with special attention to the inclusion and exclusion of the US. By analyzing diplomatic records obtained at four national archives (Australia, Japan, the UK, and the US), as well as memoirs by retired officials and other studies, this paper shows that regionalism in Asia was often pursued in an exclusionary manner, mainly by Japan, and to a lesser degree by Indonesia. The paper also discusses whether and how regionalism in Europe can be explained with this alternative theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has historically relied upon state-centred approaches to governance. However, there have been a number of instances where ASEAN has sought to shift to, or at least signal value in, people-centred approaches to governance. Notably, there is a range of approaches within ASEAN nations towards human rights. This paper considers people-centred and public-participation initiatives in ASEAN conceptually, and analyses the potential to realize the goals contained in policy ideals as stated by ASEAN. The rhetoric of people-centrism serves more as gaslighting than real opportunity for people to impact public discourse and the region's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional resilience has been criticized in the literature for being fuzzy. Based on that criticism one could expect it to suffer from conceptual stretching, that is that authors mean different things when they write about regional resilience. In this paper for the first time, a bibliometric analysis is presented to tackle the issue of fuzziness and stretching concerning regional resilience. With the help of that analysis, we identified three groups of research on regional resilience, urban ecology and policies (red), economic dynamics and regional evolutionary perspectives (green) and crisis management and engineering/modelling (blue). We also identified the key papers cited in these groups. In a second step, our qualitative analysis reveals that the divide between the red and green groups is not large and that the blue group is relatively isolated. Overall, the concept of regional resilience seems to be less stretched than we expected on the basis of the criticism expressed in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether global improvements in human development involve subnational regions in a territorially cohesive way. We use a subnational human development index (SHDI) for 1778 regions within 163 countries over three decades, and propose measures for relative over- and under-performance. We find that frequently observed reductions of within-country inequality are not necessarily accompanied by reductions in under- and over-performance. Moreover, from a global perspective, we detect the presence of a non-negligible set of under-developing subnational regions spanning across 30 plus countries that fail to catch-up with the world average human development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the interplay between narratives on Central Asia as a region. It compares European Union (EU) narratives with those of the five post-Soviet states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. By doing so, it investigates the manifestations of narratives, stories and narrators who continue to construct and convey certain discourses about the region, comparing EU discourse and that of the local political elites in Central Asia, respectively. By looking at official discourse conveyed by the presidents of the countries and in key foreign policy documents, the interplay of narratives as dialogues between narrators is analysed, thus expanding into ideational analysis, an emerging trend in the literature on post-Soviet Central Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By applying New Regionalism Approach, this paper delves into a rather unexplored area of regionalism (higher education) in a less investigated region (Southeast Asia) and state (Philippines). It treads through a relatively recent terrain of bridge-building between higher education and regionalism. Through in-depth interviews and document analysis, the exploratory study investigates how ASEAN regionalism has influenced the cross-border research of a Philippine university. Examining cross-border research sheds light on the dynamics of ASEAN regionalism as research is considered crucial to the formation of a knowledge society, which, in turn, serves as a potent tool to pursue regional and national objectives. The findings of this study demonstrate that the ASEAN higher education regionalism offers vital mechanisms to enhance the university's research performance and its overall competitiveness in an era of globalisation. However, in spite of these advantages, there are ideational, political and material challenges that pose limits to this potential. The paper argues that cross-border research has not yet been robustly activated as a mechanism for regional and national pursuits, and that the points of collaborations and contestations are still to be addressed adequately to maximise the promises and mitigate the perils of ASEAN higher education regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past three decades, the Visegrad Four (V4) shifted from normative conformity with the West to pursue a counter-hegemonic strategy in relation to the EU. Explaining the 'why's' behind the non-conformity stance, the paper adopts discourse analysis to explain the rise of modern-day sub-regionalism within the political borders of the EU. The European migration crisis catalyzed a discursive clash between members of the V4 on one hand and actors within the European Institutions on the other. This has led to an identity redefinition within the V4, igniting a process of sub-regional reaffirmation. Other than being a complementary sub-regional grouping, the paper finds and coins a new category of sub-regionalism, 'opportunistic sub-regionalism' to explain the dialectic relationship between the EU and V4. We find that this alternative form of sub-regionalist grouping is linked to observable attempts at achieving a level of sub-regional actorship to influence decision making in the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobile theatre being the one and only regional fully commercial cultural industry in Assam (India) has significant representation of the Assamese culture. The theatre medium started as a socially responsible cultural forum later translated itself into a commercial enterprise. The 1990s repertoire of Mobile theatre can be seen as popular and it often resonates the regional-political events, while by the 20th century, it took an entirely commercial shift and created a 'populist model'. This paper aims to understand this shift between these popular (political) and populist, through some of the classic theatre productions like Soraguri Sapori (1983) and Titanic (1996). While the first case study attempts to read the performance against the backdrop of Assam Movement and its subsequent emergence of insurgency in the state. Then, the other tries to develop an understanding on the populist shift against the socio-political and neo-economic changes in 20th century. The paper takes performance analysis approach while studying the productions and also trying address the debates around the idea of 'Popular'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper theorises fragility of regional solidarities in light of the emerging ways in which two Arabian Gulf states, Bahrain and Oman, are undertaking their transition to a knowledge economy. The paper shows ways in which regional symbolic solidarity goals of common economic and educational development in the Gulf region are challenged by locally focussed priorities at the level of each nation state. These findings carry important theoretical implications as the time of transition to a knowledge economy seems to drive readjustments in thinking about what the 'Gulf-wide unity is for', prompting its repositioning from an alliance established to protect and facilitate regional development to a means supporting local ends. The paper therefore challenges the spatial focus in some theoretical frameworks used in analyses of the sociology of regional solidarities and calls for the need of temporal lenses in such analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this paper is to investigate how the establishment of the Eurasian Economic Union (and of the Customs Union, its predecessor organisation) affected the way Eurasian countries interact with the WTO. There exists a large literature on the tensions between the regional economic integration and the multilateral trade system; adjusting its arguments for the case of the post-Soviet Eurasia, I ask whether establishment of the CU/EAEU reduced the interest of Eurasian countries towards the WTO membership, constrained them in the WTO negotiations or affected their commitments towards the WTO. For the first two questions, I find that the CU/EAEU did not make WTO membership less desirable or feasible. My findings with respect to the third question are ambiguous. Overall, the paper concludes that Eurasian regionalism does not constitute a major constraint for the Eurasian countries' participation in the multilateral trade system (at least for the large countries). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper summarises the findings of this special issue and suggests avenues for future research. It concludes that the Eurasian regionalisms' development in the 2010s was influenced, among other factors, by Russia's concerns about external threats and by its control over the Eurasian space. However, the design of the regional institutions does not make them incompatible with global governance. The cooperation between global and regional institutions varies depending on the agenda of the specific regional organisation. In addition to direct competition between global and regional institutions, there may be an indirect one through offering access to different forms of economic benefits. Through this indirect strategy, regional institutions may reduce the incentives for individual countries to comply with their obligations to global institutions. This paper also places Eurasia within a global context of analysis and considers similar trends world-wide as well as outlines the agenda for future studies of global versus regional governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the ideational interaction underlying attempts at regional integration and cooperation in Eurasia. While the ideas and values of the European Union have been relatively well-studied within the theory of Europeanisation, the key concepts, ideas, values and principles driving Eurasian regionalism have remained out of the main focus of Western scholarship. This paper aims to shed more light on this ideational basis of Eurasian regionalism by unveiling the discourse developed in Russian scholarship and available only in Russian. Understanding interactions between institutions will always remain partial as long as the ideational interaction is not addressed. Such concepts as 'integrative mentality', as a segment of the wider category 'foreign policy mentality', and the theory of neo-Eurasianism have been incorporated into Russian political discourse and therefore affect public opinion through specific interpretation of economic, political and cultural processes in the EU's near neighbourhood and the EU as an actor. The analysis presented in this paper indicates the development of new ideational competition, in addition to the well-documented geopolitical one. The paper also aspires to contribute to emerging research on public support to governmental strategic choices and self-legitimation of international organisations in Eurasia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic statecraft (ES) has been playing an increased role in affecting the international relations. While armed conflicts decline, states have been weaponising trade, investment, and other economic ties to gain leverage over their counterparts. In the contemporary world, ES is not only used to galvanise countries' influence in specific issue areas but also part of their grand strategy to achieve broad power-maximisation goals. Despite a proliferation of ES literatures in recent years, extant research tended to focus on great powers' ES, leaving small states' ES under-examined. Also, previous studies usually looked into how countries unilaterally employ ES. Hence, insufficient attention has been paid to how regional states work together to collectively alter multilateral frameworks to advance their ES. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates small nations' roles in the development of multilateral cooperative frameworks. Using the ES lens, it explores how these countries leverage these schemes to push forward their collective ES. The main argument is that regional states worked together to craft the terms of multilateral economic agreements to galvanise their clout over certain governance areas. I validate this argument by using the case of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). This study makes contributions to the research pertaining to ES, small states' strategies, and economic regionalism. It also yields practical implications for policymakers involved in fostering international economic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The new wave of nationalism has led to an increase in trade barriers, trade wars and break away from Mega-regionals of various economic powers in the world. In-line with the United States in TPP and the United Kingdom in the European Union, India has also withdrawn from RCEP, inter alia, to protect its domestic market from flooding of imports with no gains in services. With the on-going global recession, this protectionist behaviour of countries has intensified the global slow growth. The paper dwells into the reasons for India's backout and concludes that it would lose its export potential and an opportunity to be part of value chains in the region. Concomitantly, other members of the grouping would also lose their export potential in the Indian market. Therefore, RCEP members should re-evaluate the grouping without India and India should consider a middle way approach to be a part of this Mega-regional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to broaden the conceptual approaches to understanding the complexity of student mobility in higher education (HE) across the Taiwan Strait, thereby exemplifying a contradictory mix of collaboration and competition that involves interplay among the various forces associated with global, regional and national settings. To achieve this goal, the paper provides an abstraction of 'trichotomisation', which explains the significance of the concepts of globalism, regionalism and nationalism in understanding cross-Strait student mobility, and thus shows its threefold nature. Specifically, it considers the intensification of cross-Strait student mobility in HE and the counter-reaction as a manifestation of globalism, a form of regionalism, and an expression of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the possibility of a partnership between foreign aid donors and South Pacific NGOs. This partnership focus emerged out of the 2011 Busan Outcome Document. Drawing on 51 interviews of donors and Pacific-created NGOs in four countries (Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu), this paper finds limited donor–NGO partnership. Reasons include insufficient donor interest in a partnership, capacity and accountability concerns for Pacific NGOs, and scarce core funding. While global agreements to encourage partnership are important components of development effectiveness discussions, donor–NGO partnership is not yet possible within the Pacific context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classical African regionalism, as rooted in pan-Africanism, is a strategy for decolonisation, anti-colonial and neo-colonial struggles, and continental unity. Modern African regionalism is a means to achieving continental unity, collective self-reliance and economic transformation as well as to creating an agenda for solving African developmental challenges. The main objective of this paper, therefore, is to examine the historical evolution of pan-Africanism and regionalism in Africa from colonial to post-colonial era in order to trace the interface between them. The paper assesses the extent to which regional integration in Africa has been able to achieve its stated objectives and targets over the years. It also investigates the various obstacles, constraints and challenges that militate against the accomplishment of its objectives, opportunities and prospects. It then interrogates the narratives of the Western neoliberal theories of integration or approaches to African integration. Subsequently the paper suggests that there is a need to deconstruct them in the search for paradigm shift in African integration. It contends that there is also a need to evolve a new theoretical approach to African integration anchored on neo-neo-integrationism of post-neo-functionalism or post-modern integrationism of post-neo-nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An 'infrastructure turn' across the social and policy sciences is generating a new wave of interdisciplinary enquiry into how infrastructure is shaping urban and regional space. This editorial introduces a virtual special issue that charts the evolution of infrastructure as an empirical and conceptual concern within Regional Studies. The issue demonstrates that analysing regions through infrastructure – whether large, capital-intensive projects or more mundane infrastructures – provides a novel and necessary perspective on the regional question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars generally agree that regionalization and regionalism are different phenomena; however, unresolved arguments remain as to whether there is a causal relationship between the two. In particular, whether or not regionalization promotes regionalism is a subject of debate. This paper aims to comprehensively clarify and explain the relationship between regionalization as embodied in trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and regionalism as characterized by preferential trade agreements (PTAs) using event history analyses of East Asian economic data from 1985 to 2018. The paper concludes that although a positive and significant relationship exists between FDI and some types of PTAs, trade has no relationship with the latter. This conclusion challenges extant literature, which has argued that an increase in PTAs in East Asia (the outcome of regionalism) is the consequence of economic interdependence (regionalization). Moreover, these findings indicate that political factors such as territorial disputes and joint democracy negatively affect certain types of PTAs. This result is contrary to the conventional wisdom that predicts increased cooperation and lower tariffs between democracies and therefore suggests further investigations of the determinants of PTAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues for a re-examination of China's engagement with Africa. Rather than offering broad continental generalisations, or concentrating only on individual country case-studies, researchers and analysts would be better served by recognising and understanding the specific and varied regional contexts in which relations occur. Utilising Hettne's conception of regionalism and regionalisation processes, and over 100 field work interviews, the paper presents a broad continental overview of China's role in Africa followed by a more detailed case study of China's role in East Africa. The paper argues that the regional reality of African security dynamics enmeshes China into intra-regional geopolitics and complex local level security issues, and sees the relationship greatly affected by the varied behaviour and agency of the African leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the intersection of regional and innovation studies, trademark research is producing stylized facts, methodological lessons and policy insights underlining the importance of softer intangible assets for regional resilience and growth. Despite all the recent attention, there are still several opportunities that the present agenda-framing piece tries to canvas, identifying at least two directions for further research: the geography of innovation/entrepreneurship and regional specialization/diversification. Not only do these emerge from a dedicated special issue in Regional Studies (to which this paper also serves as an editorial), but they also unfold in emerging research and policy trajectories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceived threats to sovereignty stemming from trade exposure to China have led to calls for the Australian government to embrace the concept of 'trusted trade'. This involves using policy levers to drive trade towards markets that have capitals more geopolitically aligned with Canberra and finds practical expression in forms such as 'friend-shored' supply chains. A theme of 'trusted trade' advocacy is the conscription of existing security-oriented partnerships, including the ANZUS alliance, the Quad grouping and the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement, to take on economic dimensions. While holding superficial appeal, this paper details why pursuing this policy path would be to learn the wrong lessons from Beijing's campaign of trade disruption that began in May 2020, and make Australia both poorer and less secure. Three key data points are highlighted that collectively support an assessment that the Australian government's traditional trade policy approach, emphasising open regionalism, remains overwhelmingly fit for purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) intersect and overlap in Central Asia at the heart of Eurasia. Whereas the literature has commonly focused on the economic aspects of these major regional policy initiatives, efforts to create a common Eurasian higher education space through these regionalisms have barely been studied. In response, this paper compares the development of Russian and Chinese led visions for Eurasian higher education regionalism in Central Asia and the extent to which these constructions overlap. The paper also sheds lights on the perspectives of Central Asian states by investigating how these countries are approaching these efforts to construct a Eurasian higher education region. The conceptual framework brings together higher education regionalism with overlapping regionalism and takes a policy-oriented methodological approach. The paper introduces the new term of "points of correspondence" based on language used in both Russian and Chinese policy discourse to explain how constructions of a Eurasian higher education region can overlap without duplicating or flowing into each other. "Points of correspondence" emphasizes neither competition nor collaboration but rather the ongoing pursuit to find ideas and policy tools that best fit one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, ASEAN has made efforts to increase its coherence and visibility as an actor in regional infrastructure development, under the umbrella term of connectivity. Its most recent strategy, 2016's Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025, is notable for its more focused agenda as well as a tableau of institutional innovations, including new policy coordination mechanisms and a project preparation pipeline. Nonetheless, ASEAN struggles to maintain coherence in the implementation of its connectivity agenda, both internally as well as towards its dialogue partners. Utilizing the concepts of centrality and hedging as parts of a unified theoretical framework, this paper analyzes ASEAN's efforts to mobilize and manage external resources in connectivity. ASEAN's resource dependence and its failure to establish institutional centrality creates issues at the regional and the national levels. Regionally, ASEAN's lack of centrality and its perpetuation of ASEAN+1 relations have contributed to the emergence of contesting agendas and institutional frameworks by external actors. Nationally, the hedging strategies of ASEAN member states are at odds with the regional vision, highlighting a lack of intra-ASEAN coherence. The perpetuation of contesting institutional frameworks by external actors at the national level solidifies existing incoherence in ASEAN's connectivity governance, further undermining its centrality. ASEAN's efforts to assert centrality and execute a hedging strategy in connectivity are emblematic of its attempts to extend its reach into new policy areas, but also of its persistent governance constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using firm-level panel data and estimating production functions for 37 industries, covering the 2001–16 period, this paper finds that firms in the Wellington region of New Zealand are on average about twice as productive as those in the rest of the South Island (which has the lowest average productivity). As to whether 'place' effects are the major explanation for such spatial differences or if 'firm mix' is more important, this study finds that agglomeration plays only a minor role in determining firm-level productivity levels, while the importance of spatial factors in accounting for the differential between productivity in Wellington and other areas was generally very small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a way to study the reproduction of (the identity of) a region through the concept of perceptual region. Perceptual region—revised here in light of the institutionalization of regions theory and thus comprehended as the subjective image of a region in the mind of an individual person—connects certain 'European' and 'American' regional traditions. Investigating the institutions imprinted in perceptual regions exposes on what basis people construct regions and what (re)produces such regions. This case study deals with the perception of the Bohemian–Moravian boundary in the minds of 454 borderland inhabitants, surveyed with questionnaires. Among the revealed institutions of the former administrative regions of Bohemia and Moravia, there are various formal/homogeneous and functional regions as well as their boundaries—they all reproduce the examined regions. Besides demonstrating that regions are multiple realities (where both space and time matter), social constructs, and dynamic processes, the article discusses the interrelationship of the abovementioned region types and highlights perceptual regions as essential for the region's existence. Furthermore, it suggests that focusing on ordinary people's perceptions may develop knowledge not only about the concept of region but also the concepts of the regional identity of people, resistance identity, and regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the structuring of subnational governance driven primarily by economic goals, an issue that has become increasingly overlooked is that of identity. Drawing on interviews with stakeholders from the Sheffield City Region, the paper builds on Jones and Woods' framework of 2013 of 'material' and 'imagined' coherence, demonstrating the 'imaginary' challenge of remaking subnational governance in the context of rescaling from regions to city-regions. It shows that historical regional identities can persist even in the absence of associated material components of governance, and that rescaling can create asymmetries between material and imagined coherence, resulting in competing imaginaries that hinder the new subnational arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States in the same region are bound together by the ways in which the world imagines them as a collective. One distinguishing feature of post-Cold War regionalism is its outward orientation – the importance of the external dimension of regional cooperation. By and large, though, existing analysis of regional institutional development in the Global South does not explicitly conceptualise and theorise collective image consciousness and management. This paper works to address this conceptual gap. Making use of two cases of regional image crisis – post-1980s Africa and post-1997 Southeast Asia – it draws out two primary logics of regional image consciousness: the logic of influence and the logic of resources. A region's 'brand' with respect to (dys)function and international norm (non-)compliance matters to regional actors because it affects the region's political influence in international arenas and the region's ability to attract resources from donors and investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bangladesh-Pakistan relations reached a low point in December 2013 when the International Crimes Tribunal of Bangladesh convicted nine persons of war crimes pertaining to Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, and imposed a death sentence on senior Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla. This paper examines the trials in connection to their impact on Bangladesh-Pakistan relations. The analysis in this paper shows that the traumatic break of East and West Pakistan continues to haunt bilateral relations and now has spill-over effects on South Asian regionalism. It also argues that the Awami League-India nexus is another historically persistent factor precluding better Dhaka-Islamabad relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition between metropolitan areas and old regions is one of the most visible results of the 'new regionalism' policy in the EU. The aimof this paper is to explain the newly emerged tensions between the regions and the cities within the EU in the context of the 'new regionalism'. The newly introduced 'Integrated Territorial Investments' (ITI), a potentially powerful instrument of the cohesion policy of the EU was presented as 'a flexible mechanism for formulating integrated responses to diverse territorial needs'. However, this flexibility produced a competitive relationship between cities and regions in their chase for money. Based on interviews with sub-state officials, the study focuses on two countries: Czechia and Slovakia. They are both major recipients of EU structural funds and the ITI tool is being implemented in both of them, however with different outcomes. Three variables have been identified as major factors causing the tensions: insufficient administrative capacity, political challenges and lack of shared understanding of priorities of regional development among sub-state actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how certain spatial logics are used to support contemporary region-building processes, and how these become taken for granted and institutionalized in specific regional settings. These spatial logics are also representative of the spatial logics dominating contemporary regionalism and affect the ways 'spaces' and 'citizens' are treated and valued in regional planning and policy. Few studies have shown how spatial logics are implemented, transformed and turned into policy across a wider set of regions. Exemplified by The Scandinavian 8 Million City project, the paper shows how this regional imaginary was constructed by the project promotors using several representative spatial logics of what constitutes the 'best' region as idealized in planning and policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historically, researchers have studied commemorative events primarily for their political role in the (re)construction of contested national collective memories and identities, but globalisation, social justice movements, multiculturalism and regionalism forces are further transforming commemorative practices in the 21st century. This study adopts the semiotic paradigm to deconstruct commemorative narratives communicated during major anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In doing so, this paper evidences how interwoven signs in these commemorative events construct multi-layered narratives of transnational collective memory and identity based on shared values that transcend the political boundaries of the nation. The study further showcases how shifting political contexts influence commemorative narratives, whilst at the same time commemorative events may increasingly be designed to appeal to a broader, global audience as leisure phenomena of transnational significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Applying a comparative regionalism approach to study regionalism(s) in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Latin America (LA), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), this paper outlines what lessons Latin America and ASEAN regionalism(s) hold for CARICOM based on its current updated model of that concept. With the rise of deglobalisation and the retreat towards regionalism, analysing how different regionalism models approach global, regional, and national power dynamics outlines how these regional institutions manage the externalities of colonialism and imperialism over time. The article concludes by recommending what further policies and principles CARICOM might 'borrow' from these counterparts to strengthen its regional project for the next 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1997, members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) adopted a Charter of Civil Society for the Caribbean Community (The Charter) in response to recommendations from the West Indies Commission in 1992. The Charter was part of efforts to revitalise CARICOM for the 21st century, which included adding an explicit and more direct focus on people than previously existed. The document is a human rights declaration with some participatory elements, which is non-binding on states. Nevertheless, after 26 years, The Charter remains a reality primarily on paper. This article describes and assesses The Charter and asserts that member states have not used the document to guide their approaches to human rights or people's inclusion except somewhat coincidentally. The article also offers suggestions on revising The Charter to make it a more relevant human rights document while emphasising the importance of intentionally treating it as a foundational document for creating a regional human rights framework in CARICOM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the significance and potential consequences of illiberal politics for the Visegrád Group's (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) role as a regional integration platform. Moreover, links between Europeanization and V4 geopolitical identity will be explored as part of investigating discursive framings of Central Europe's "illiberalism." I suggest that illiberal regionalism is a useful concept in that it problematizes political and popular narrations of East-West difference as competing projects of Europeanization. I will also argue that instead of a fundamental regional illiberalism what we find is an unstable, temporally limited and contingent constellation of political and social agendas. Illiberal regionalism can thus be read as strategic, aguably opportunistic, contestations of EU policies that reflect economic, political, and social uncertainties. Tensions involved in this regionalist shift are exemplified by "revolutionary" Hungarian and Polish national conservative agendas and their interaction with the more measured pragmatism of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is also clear that illiberal regionalism reflects the reciprocal and interdependent nature of the V4's political relations within the EU. Benefits of EU membership, such as leveraging and enhancing national status, continue to act as powerful counter-currents to more radical projects that would, for example, contest Euro-Atlantic alignments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]