Give reasons for Regionalisation of world politics. (200 words) (2013, 15 Marks)
Regionalisation is the growth of economic, social and political interaction within a geographic space. Driven by markets and societies as much as by governments, it differs from regionalism, the deliberate state policy that builds institutions on top of it. Since the late 1980s, what Björn Hettne and Fredrik Söderbaum (2000) call a “new regionalism”, open, multidimensional and multi-actor, has spread. Virtually every state belongs to at least one regional grouping, and 388 notified regional trade agreements were in force in September 2026 (WTO). The reasons fall into five groups.
1. Systemic reasons
- The end of the Cold War freed regions from the bloc discipline of the superpowers and let neighbours organise on their own terms.
- Globalisation and multilateral stalemate. When the Doha Round stalled, states turned to regional deals to keep liberalising. Regions also buffer small economies against global markets.
- Geo-economic fragmentation in the 2020s. Friend-shoring, near-shoring and supply-chain security now regionalise production, as the USMCA’s rules of origin and the IPEF (2022) show.
2. Economic reasons
- Larger markets, economies of scale and investment. The EU’s single market and euro are the deepest example.
- Regional value chains. East Asian electronics and North American car production cross borders many times, which makes component tariffs costly. This is regionalisation driven by firms rather than treaties.
- Jacob Viner’s (The Customs Union Issue, 1950) trade creation: integration lets specialisation follow comparative advantage, provided it outweighs trade diversion.
3. Security reasons
- Settling neighbourhood disputes. The Shanghai Five (1996) began with border confidence-building, before it grew into the SCO.
- Facing common threats. NATO, the GCC and the CSTO formed against shared adversaries. Karl W. Deutsch showed how interaction can produce security communities, as the EU did and as ASEAN aims to do.
4. Political reasons
- Collective bargaining power. Small states gain weight by acting together, as ASEAN centrality, the Pacific Islands Forum in climate talks and the African Union’s G20 seat show.
- Locking in reform. Mexico used NAFTA and Central European states used EU accession to make domestic reform hard to reverse. Andrew Moravcsik (The Choice for Europe, 1998) calls this a credible commitment.
- Managing hegemony. Smaller states embed a dominant neighbour in rules, while great powers use regional institutions to project influence cheaply.
5. Functional and identity reasons
- Rivers, power grids, pandemics and migration cross borders. As neofunctionalists following Ernst B. Haas argue, technical cooperation spills over into further integration.
- Shared history and culture, such as pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism and the “ASEAN Way”, supply the political will.
The Indian illustration
India turned to BIMSTEC (Charter in force 2024; Bangkok Vision 2030 adopted April 2025) and the Act East policy once SAARC stalled over the India–Pakistan dispute, with no summit since 2014. India’s 2019 exit from RCEP shows the reverse logic: states resist regionalisation that threatens domestic producers.
Conclusion
Regionalisation follows from interdependence, insecurity and the search for bargaining power in a world where the global level is too large to govern and the national level is too small. In the 2020s the main driver has shifted from trade efficiency to security and supply-chain resilience.