This is the first of five volumes reporting on the UNU-WIDER study on New Regionalism. It deals with the conceptions and meanings of two processes which probably will have a crucial influence on the shape of the 'new world order' - globalization and regionalization. These studies relate to each other as challenge to response, globalization being the challenge of economic and cultural homogenization of the world and regionalization being a social and political reaction. The leading writers in the field contribute thought-provoking and fascinating articles to this volume.

Featuring a notable list of international contributors, this book presents a systematic and stimulating discussion on regionalism, covering topical issues such as recent financial crises, enlargement within EU and the post-Lome regionalism of Africa.

Theories of New Regionalism represents the first systematic attempt to bring together leading theories of new regionalism. Major theorists from around the world develop their own distinctive theoretical perspectives, spanning new regionalism & world order approaches along with regional governance, liberal institutionalism & neoclassical development regionalism, to regional security complex theory (RSCT) and the region-building approach.

These papers are a seminal source of discussion for what is simply the most profound shift of U.S. strategy in half a century. The 13 essays and keynotes by Colin Powell address potential flash points of conflict likely to affect long-range U.S. planning, as well as salient political, economic and military developments likely to dominate particular regions of the world -- from the Middle East and East Asia to Africa and Latin America. This is in effect a workbook for understanding national security in the 20th century's final decade. 6 maps.

The European Single Market, NAFTA and Mercosur powerfully shape international relations and economic development; they also symbolize a shift in economic policy towards a world market-oriented and liberalizing strategy. Schirm argues that this new regionalism is essentially aresult of the impact of globalization on domestic politics. The increasing transnational mobility of private economic actors alters the costs and benefits of economic policy options for governments as well as the interests of domestic groups. Globalization stimulates economic reforms whose economic efficiency and political acceptability are increased through regional cooperation. Globalization and the New Regionalism is innovative in three aspects: it offers a new theoretical approach to integration theory; it develops a distinct interpretative model for the impact of globalization on states; and it compares systematically the influence of globalization and the preferences for cooperation cross-regionally in Europe and the Americas. Case studies include the industrialized countries France, Germany, Great Britain and the United States, as well as the newly industrializing countries Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. This book is a timely contribution to the debate on the consequences of globalization and the foundations of regionalism, and has far-reaching implications for theories of international relations and political economy.