International Studies: Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World Politics
Review of International Studies (1995), 21, 331-358
Printed in Great Britain
Explaining the resurgence of regionalism in world politics*
ANDREW HURRELL
The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of regionalism in world politics.
Old regionalist organizations have been revived, new organizations formed, and regionalism and the call for strengthened regionalist arrangements have been central to many of the debates about the nature of the post-Cold War international order.1
The number, scope and diversity of regionalist schemes have grown significantly since the last major 'regionalist wave' in the 1960s.2 Writing towards the end of this earlier regionalist wave, Joseph Nye could point to two major classes of regionalist activity: on the one hand, micro-economic organizations involving formal economic integration and characterized by formal institutional structures; and on the other, macro-regional political organizations concerned with controlling conflict.3 Today, in the political field, regional dinosaurs such as the Organization of African Unity
(OAU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have re-emerged. They have been joined both by a large number of aspiring micro-regional bodies (such as the
Visegrad Pact and the Pentagonale in central Europe; the Arab Maghreb Union
(AMU) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the Middle East; ECOWAS and possibly a revived Southern African Development Community (SADC, formerly
* This article draws (with permission) on material in Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (eds.),
Regionalism in World Politics (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming 1995). The author would like to thank
Louise Fawcett, Ngaire Woods, William Wallace, Andrew Wyatt-Walter, Robert O'Brien and the journal's referees for their helpful comments.
1
For many analysts trends towards regionalism are well established. Dominick Salvatore, for example, believes that 'the world has already and probably irreversibly moved into an
Printed in Great Britain
Explaining the resurgence of regionalism in world politics*
ANDREW HURRELL
The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of regionalism in world politics.
Old regionalist organizations have been revived, new organizations formed, and regionalism and the call for strengthened regionalist arrangements have been central to many of the debates about the nature of the post-Cold War international order.1
The number, scope and diversity of regionalist schemes have grown significantly since the last major 'regionalist wave' in the 1960s.2 Writing towards the end of this earlier regionalist wave, Joseph Nye could point to two major classes of regionalist activity: on the one hand, micro-economic organizations involving formal economic integration and characterized by formal institutional structures; and on the other, macro-regional political organizations concerned with controlling conflict.3 Today, in the political field, regional dinosaurs such as the Organization of African Unity
(OAU) and the Organization of American States (OAS) have re-emerged. They have been joined both by a large number of aspiring micro-regional bodies (such as the
Visegrad Pact and the Pentagonale in central Europe; the Arab Maghreb Union
(AMU) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in the Middle East; ECOWAS and possibly a revived Southern African Development Community (SADC, formerly
* This article draws (with permission) on material in Louise Fawcett and Andrew Hurrell (eds.),
Regionalism in World Politics (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming 1995). The author would like to thank
Louise Fawcett, Ngaire Woods, William Wallace, Andrew Wyatt-Walter, Robert O'Brien and the journal's referees for their helpful comments.
1
For many analysts trends towards regionalism are well established. Dominick Salvatore, for example, believes that 'the world has already and probably irreversibly moved into an