ABSTRACT
The prevailing mood amongst academics and policymakers at the conference was one partly of pessimism about the prospects for regional governance and policy, but it was also one of curiosity about the likely shape of what at the time was assumed to be an emerging post-regional era. Within some countries uncertainty about regional governance and policy making has resulted in efforts to dismantle existing regional institutions and replace them with territorial bodies defined in different ways. Renewed interest in developing regional policy and governance as a means of stimulating economic development provided a fillip for political and administrative aspects of regionalism. Advocates of regionalism drew on well-established arguments that developing institutions at a regional scale could help to enhance the scope for strategic thinking about policy, create scale economies for more efficient service delivery and provide a more stable fiscal basis on which to deliver services. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
