New Regionalism - Essay Example

New Regionalism s The idea of protecting the welfare of nations by various agreements and linkages, including trade agreements and protection of common interests, was a notion that did not prevail around the time of the first two World Wars. However, it was the end of World War II that had nations realize the importance of staying linked and integrating on a more economic, social and political level. This may be regarded as the emergence of the idea of regionalism as well where geographic and social ties helped nations come together. In basic terminology, “Regionalism” is the trading practice in which countries that lie within the same geographical region collaborate with each other to form regional trade agreements that is, RTAs. On a general basis, this merger is based on close geographical territories, while their aim is to accomplish a set of objectives, the most pronounced of them being enhancing economic growth of the region, while secondary objectives include allowing the economies of scale. Sometimes, the objectives may also be non-economics related, for instance, managing immigration, promoting regional security and enhancing domestic economic reforms. With the passage of time, regionalism was divided into two categories, based on the different eras when it prevailed. New regionalism is a phenomenon that can be considered as still in the making and that began to emerge in the mid-1980s, in comparison to the “old regionalism” that swept the world in 1950s and was over by the 1970s. What makes new regionalism different from the traditional definitions of old regionalism and regionalism, is that it a process of change that is taking place simultaneously at various different levels, which include the global system level, the level of interregional relations and the very structure of the region itself. In various respects, this form of regionalism is associated with globalism for they are interrelated in more than a single way. It is the idea of globalism that has increased the importance of interregional relations and hence constitutes a part of the new wave of regionalism. Every region is interdependent on the other and thus the behavior of one region invariably impacts on the other. A current example may be taken in terms of the European regionalism. The regions of EU, NAFTA and ASIA PACIFIC support regionalism among themselves, i.e. North states with North states, and at the same time with regions towards the south, i.e. a collaboration between North states and South states. Let us consider a quick comparison between the old and new structures of regionalism over the years. While the old regionalism was dominated by the Cold war structure that dominated the global scenario for long after the world wars, the current regionalism is associated to the current transformation of the world with all the associated features of globalism attached to it. It is the result of interrelated transformations of the global system. While the old regionalism may be regarded as specific with regard to its content and its objective, with the prime focus remaining on free trade arrangements and security alliances, the diversity of new regionalism allows it to be more comprehensive, more multidimensional than the previous one. It covers aspects as diverse as the heterogeneity of regions, covering culture, security, economic policies and political regimes. Another prime difference is the fact that while old regionalism was mostly imposed by forces from above or outside the system, essentially as an impact of the bipolar Cold War power structure, the new regionalism is more spontaneous, arising from below or within the region itself and with a greater emphasis on the problems of the region itself. When a comparison between old and new regionalism is conducted, one must also consider the reason for the general success of new regionalism as compared to the older one. There is a marked difference in the international environment and its greeting of the new regionalism policies as compared to that experienced by the old one. There are three prime reasons for this, 1. The liberalization of trade on a multilateral level with regard to articles of export amongst the industrialized countries is much more established and diverse than it was previously. 2. Those countries which are comparatively less advanced, with respect to their economics, have abandoned the old anti-market policies and now give way to a much more successful attempt to join the multilateral trading system. This implies that while in those days, the communist bloc was still largely following its own policies and the less developed countries were highly doubtful when it came to trade and direct foreign investment, the current scenario, however shows that a more liberalized form of trading, new regionalism, has emerged. 3. Direct investment is now more prominent and prevalent than it was ever before, and has been on the continuous rise ever since new regionalism arrived. The focus of regionalism is on “Regional Trade Agreement, RTAs, which is a general term that incorporates within itself various levels of economic integration. Its most common type is free trade, where the member nations liberalize internal trade, and yet at the same time retain their independent external tariffs. Hence new regionalism is also characterized by the bond that these trade agreements have created between the developing countries, or the new linkages that have been created between these developing countries and one or more of the developed countries. If we begin to analyze new regionalism, it is characterized to include the following elements, which are key to the achievement of complete economic and monetary union between regions. They include the following 1. Focusing on specific territorial and spatial planning within a region 2. Addressing any of the problems that have generated as a result of growth, or distribution of post modern metropolitan regions. 3. A holistic and comprehensive approach to planning, integrating specialties of transportation, land use, economic and equity goals. These are the basic goals of regionalism, while with respect to the global scenario and the trade agreements associated between two regions, the following aims and objectives prevail: To facilitate financial and foreign investment flows by necessary protection measures and required investment protocols. To allow the liberal movement of labor within the RTA; Reconsidering domestic tax and subsidy policies, Harmonizing macro policies, including fiscal and monetary policy, to ensure a stable economic environment within the RTA. Improvements of communications and transportation infrastructure to facilitate increased trade. Harmonizing legal regulation of product and factor markets (e.g anti-trust law, commercial law, labor relations, financial institutions) Monetary union, to establish a common currency and hence ensure the implementation of exchange rate policies. At some point, the question arises as to whether and how regionalism can have a greater impact on prosperity as compared to the other systems of world governance that are currently implemented and working in a somewhat effective manner. Regional governments and cities can align better with the changes in cultures and globalization and tend to be more effective both in terms of time and cost. Even in this respect, the new form of regionalism covers a much diverse array of topics and caters to the current needs of globalization. Regionalism, or in simplistic terms, regional cooperation may also be categorized into two types, intergovernmental regional cooperation and state promoted regional integration. In the former system of regional integrity, individual states work together for the mutual benefits of infrastructure, water, energy, and other common grounds. However, the interest of the individual member states is the prime target. This form of cooperation is formal with a high degree of institutionalization. On the other hand, state promoted regional integration is the process in which the individual states merge together, on voluntary grounds, into a single regional economic and political system. These are inclusive of the policies designed to abolish all forms of barriers to exchange of goods, capital and people. A few categories of regionalism may be understood as follows. If we talk about Mega or Wide regionalism, some organizations that follow this system include APEC, ARF and ASEM. While another branch of regionalism, characterized as Sub-Regionalism is being implemented by organizations like ASEAN and also by nations including Japan, China and Korea as part of their own regional treaties. A comparatively later form of regionalism, Functional regionalism covers such aspects as are dealt by the Anti-Terrorism Cooperation and the Proliferation Security Initiative. (PSI) Another rising question at this stage has become as to whether localism is the new regionalism. For this, we first understand what localism is. Localism is the act of redistributing power and responsibilities and involving the strategic and selective options of the central government. When a government fails to execute localism, the fix in the form of regionalism or more accurately city regionalism is adopted. Thus localism can turn out to be the new regionalism, a reallocation of different scales of governance roles, where the potential of a particular scale of government to solve long standing problems is evaluated, as compared to the blind acceptance of effective governance on more than one scale. However new regionalism is not as easily implementable as may be considered. Wheeler concluded that implementing New Regionalism strategies was a “difficult” task. One challenge is that public organizations need a broad mandate to participate in New Regionalism supports. Also problematic is when key issues of new regionalism, which concern public welfare and public agencies are in conflict with political agendas, and hence are limited by a wall of resistance from local, state, and federal governments, and become entangled in a power struggle with other agencies. To add to this, traditional methods favor decentralization and federalism (specific powers for federal and state governments). 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