Springe direkt zu Inhalt

Theorizing Regionalism. Cooperation, Integration, and Governance

Cover: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism

Cover: The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism

Tanja A. Börzel – 2016

The chapter argues that dominant theories of regional cooperation and integration share a bias towards taking states as the main drivers of regionalism and focusing on processes of formal institution-building at the regional level. Nevertheless, many theoretical approaches still travel across regions if their concepts and explanatory logics are broadened beyond the economic realm. Where they largely fail, however, is in explaining similarities and differences in institutional designs of regional organizations and in accounting for their effects. The last part of the chapter suggests that the governance concept may help theories of regional cooperation and integration to overcome their statist and formal institutionalist bias strengthening their explanatory power. Governance gives equal status to state and non-state actors and does not prioritize formal over informal institutions. It thereby provides a useful framework to systematically compare varieties of regionalism across time and space and explain their emergence, outcomes, and effects.

Title
Theorizing Regionalism. Cooperation, Integration, and Governance
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Location
Oxford
Keywords
regionalism, governance theory, meta-governance, Research Project B2
Date
2016
Identifier
ISBN 978-0199682300
Appeared in
Börzel, Tanja A./Risse, Thomas (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism, 41-63.
Language
eng
Type
Text