ABSTRACT
The emergence of new patterns of institutionalized international cooperation and even integration seems to be a world-wide phenomenon, from Mercosur in South America over the European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council to ASEAN in Southeast Asia. In this chapter, the Mediterranean Basin is particularly interesting, given the point that several collective identities and integration processes overlap. Pan-Arabism as a grandiose nationalist ideology about creating one big Arab nation "from the Ocean to the Gulf", quite flourishing in previous decades, seems to be dead for all practical purposes. An Islamic identity can support patterns of international cooperation and even integration. It can go along with Pan-Arabism to quite some extent, given the point that the Arab countries are predominantly Muslim countries. The other grand project which has had an impact on the Mediterranean Basin has been Pan-Africanism. Nkrumah argued that regional arrangements were antithetical to real Pan-Africanism.
