ABSTRACT
In the study of regions, then, the key dimensions center around the division of the world by levels of analysis and by the physical-functional distinction. Physical regions refer to territorial, military, and economic spaces controlled primarily by states, but functional regions are defined by nonterritorial factors such as culture and the market that are often the purview of nons tate actors. For instance, an ethnic group may want to create a cultural region and use it agentively to promote an independent political community. In the global system, economic regions are constructed by transnational capitalist processes, environmental regions by the interplay between human actions and the biosphere, and cultural regions by identity communities.
