ABSTRACT
After the end of the Cold War, students of International Relations observed an expansion of inter-state activities at the regional level. Regional and sub-regional groupings appeared to gain momentum as the way in which countries cooperate and should cooperate to pursue peace, stability, wealth and social justice. The surge and resurgence of regionalism has triggered the proliferation of concepts and approaches. There is new and old regionalism, regionalism in its first, second and third generation; economic, monetary, security and cultural regionalism, state regionalism, shadow regionalism; cross-, inter-, trans- and multi-regionalism; pure and hybrid regionalism; offensive, extroverted, open or neoliberal as opposed to defensive, introverted, closed, resistance, regulatory and developmental regionalism; lower level and higher level regionalism; North, South and North–South regionalism; informal and institutional regionalism – just to name a few of the labels the literature has come up with to account for the new trend in International Relations.
