ABSTRACT
Regional integration processes come in many varieties (Costea and Van Langenhove 2007) and are driven by many factors, such as economic or security concerns. To the extent that regional integration is a voluntary process designed by policy-makers there is – in a more or less explicit way – always a vision behind it. Various options are always possible, and choices must be made. The political choices relevant to regional integration concern the ‘depth’ of integration (more or less integration), the ‘width’ of integration (who to include in the process) and the content of integration (such as trade, security and social issues). Furthermore, there are two components of such political choices: the extent to which they are backed by evidence, and the democratic support for the choices made. Both evidence and democratic support for policy choices can be attained through the use of participative and foresight techniques. This chapter discusses the use of participative and foresight techniques to explore possible scenarios for regional integration processes.
