ABSTRACT
An offshoot of this seemingly emergent multi-layered system of global governance is interregionalism. Interregionalism is part of an increasing vertical differentiation of international institutions ranging from the global to the local level. A driving force in this process has been the proliferation of new regional organizations in all parts of the world since the mid-1980s. This ‘new regionalism’ has given rise to the emergence of new intermediary institutions linking the regional level ‘upstream’ with the global level (interregionalism) and ‘downstream’ (trans-border or subregional institutions) with the national level of decision-making. Interregionalism thrived on the fact that regionalism added a new chess board to policymakers, and that thus it was only natural that regions would begin to interact and cooperate with each other, either to position themselves against other regions or to influence in their favour decision-making in global multilateral institutions (Roloff 1998, 2001, 2006).
