The challenge of integration : Europe and the Americas
01 May 1995-Americas (North-South Center, University of Miami , Transaction Publishers)-Vol. 75, Iss: 2, pp 318-319
TL;DR: In this article, a collection of 14 papers explores the political dimensions of regional integration, discussing the key aspects of the European experience, from the Treaty of Rome to the Single European Act to the Treaty Treaty of Maastricht and beyond.
Abstract: This collection of 14 papers explores the political dimensions of regional integration, discussing the key aspects of the European experience, from the Treaty of Rome to the Single European Act to the Treaty of Maastricht and beyond.
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TL;DR: This paper found that membership in regional IOs is correlated with transitions to democracy during the period from 1950 to 1992, and delineated three causal mechanisms that link IOs to domestic actors' calculations about political liberalization.
Abstract: Scholars and policymakers alike have recently begun to tout the ability of international organizations (IOs) to encourage and secure democracy throughout the world. Despite this stance, little theoretical attention or empirical investigation has attempted to ascertain why or whether this relationship truly exists. One challenge to answering this puzzle is that extant theories of international institutions do not generally delineate clear hypotheses about how IOs influence domestic politics. In this article, I address this paucity of both theory and empirical evidence. I delineate three causal mechanisms that link IOs to domestic actors' calculations about political liberalization and test the argument. I find that membership in regional IOs is correlated with transitions to democracy during the period from 1950 to 1992.
463 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the influence of trade flows on military disputes of preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), a broad class of commercial institutions that includes free trade areas, common markets, and customs unions, is examined.
Abstract: The relationship between foreign trade and political conflict has been a persistent source of controversy among scholars of international relations. Existing empirical studies of this topic have focused on the effects of trade flows on conflict, but they have largely ignored the institutional context in which trade is conducted. In this article we present some initial quantitative results pertaining to the influence on military disputes of preferential trading arrangements (PTAs), a broad class of commercial institutions that includes free trade areas, common markets, and customs unions. We argue that parties to the same PTA are less prone to disputes than other states and that hostilities between PTA members are less likely to occur as trade flows rise between them. Moreover, we maintain that heightened commerce is more likely to inhibit conflict between states that belong to the same preferential grouping than between states that do not. Our results accord with this argument. Based on an analysis of the period since World War II, we find that trade flows have relatively little effect on the likelihood of disputes between states that do not participate in the same PTA. Within PTAs, however, there is a strong, inverse relationship between commerce and conflict. Parties to such an arrangement are less likely to engage in hostilities than other states, and the likelihood of a military dispute dips markedly as trade increases between them.
337 citations
TL;DR: The past decade has witnessed a resurgence of regionalism in world politics as discussed by the authors 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.
Abstract: 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. The number, scope and diversity of regionalist schemes have grown significantly since the last major ‘regionalist wave’ in the 1960s. 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. 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 SADCC) led by post-apartheid South Africa in Africa), and by loosely institutionalized meso-regional security groupings such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE, now OSCE) and more recently the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). In the economic field, micro-regional schemes for economic cooperation or integration (such as the Southern Cone Common Market, Mercosur, the Andean Pact, the Central American Common Market (CACM) and CARICOM in the Americas; the attempts to expand economic integration within ASEAN; and the proliferation of free trade areas throughout the developing world) stand together with arguments for macro-economic or ‘bloc regionalism’ built around the triad of an expanded European Union (EU), the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and some further development of Asia-Pacific regionalism. The relationship between these regional schemes and between regional and broader global initiatives is central to the politics of contemporary regionalism.
314 citations
TL;DR: In Asia and Europe, integration processes occur in informal and inclusive network structures as mentioned in this paper, which contrasts with the more formal and exclusive pattern that characterizes the integration process among continental European states, and the analysis of international politics could be enriched if it took more account of these emerging structures in different world regions.
Abstract: Processes of globalization are occurring in a world marked by processes of regional integration that are comparable though different. Integration processes in both Asia and Europe are open to global forces and marked by multiple centres of influence. In Asia, integration processes occur in informal and inclusive network structures. This contrasts with the more formal and exclusive pattern that characterizes the integration process among continental European states. Our analysis of international politics could be enriched if it took more account of these emerging structures in different world regions.
188 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on the key role that emerging trading blocs will have in shaping the world economy of the 21st century and emphasize the importance of emerging trading groups.
Abstract: Recent literature on regional integration has stressed the key role that emerging trading blocs will have in shaping the world economy of the 21st-century. With the end of the Cold War, policymakers have refocused their attention on economic issues. Economic trends — such as rapid changes in research, technology, capital flow, and trade patterns — have assumed a new importance. Increasing competition in world markets has induced industrialized countries to cluster together in regional economic blocs. This has been the case with the European Community (EC), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) signatories (the United States, Canada, and Mexico), and possibly Japan and its East Asian neighbors. However, these experiments in regional integration differ appreciably in nature. For instance, the EC explicitly seeks an economic and political union, whereas the NAFTA is simply a free trade area whose goal is the eventual elimination of restrictions on investment flows.
97 citations