ABSTRACT
Regionalism is a complex and highly problematic concept, yet ubiquitous in contemporary political science and international relations scholarship. For the IR researcher, two meanings are more frequently associated to it. First, regionalism may be understood as an umbrella for various archetypal categories of political initiatives at regional level, where regional would refer to a group of three or more neighboring countries. “Regional integration,” “economic regional cooperation,” and “political regional agreements” are categories that fall under this umbrella. In this sense, it is a species of inter-governmental cooperation. The second meaning reflects the dynamic dimension of the concept—the spread of regional intergovernmental arrangements across the globe. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as a “wave of regionalism.” Currently, within IR literature, four such waves have been identified. A first might be placed in the first half of the twentieth century, especially during the interwar period. A second generation would have appeared during the Cold War (and is often labeled “old regionalism”), while the third one (“new regionalism”) immediately after this. More debatable and less acknowledged would be a fourth wave—a new type of initiative which focuses on the regional arrangements themselves rather than the governments, something we may call “inter-regional regionalism.”
