ABSTRACT
Historically, the study of regionalism and regional integration has focused heavily on sovereignty transfer and political unification within inter-state regional organisations. This is seen in the innumerable studies on the European Union (EU) and other state-led regional projects, such as the African Union (AU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR). The focus on formal (even formalistic) regionalism as a state-led and policy-driven project has frequently been combined with an analysis of official (in contrast with unofficial) economic flows of trade, capital, and people.
