ABSTRACT
Regionalism is regional. Preferential trading arrangements since World War II have almost always involved nations that are geographic neighbours, or near neighbours. This chapter investigates why. A second distinguishing feature of these arrangements is their occurrence over time: many attempts at integration-most ultimately futile except in Europe-during the 1950s and 1960s, followed by years of relative inactivity, with a dramatic resurgence of new initiatives beginning in the late 1980s. Geographic proximity of neighbours characterizes both the ‘old regionalism’ and the ‘new regionalism’, but this chapter concerns the latter.
