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1. Collective Regional Image: Logics of Consciousness and Modes of Management in Post-Cold War Africa and Southeast Asia

Author:
Brooke Coe
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
One distinguishing feature of the “new” regionalism is its outward orientation – the increased importance of the external dimension of regional cooperation. It makes sense, then, that efforts to manage external perceptions of a region, on the part of policy-relevant actors in that region, might contribute to important changes to regional norms and institutions. By and large, though, existing accounts of normative and institutional change at the regional level do not explicitly conceptualize and theorize collective image consciousness and management. This paper offers an initial attempt to address this conceptual gap, making use of two cases of regional image crisis (post-Cold War Africa and post-1997 Southeast Asia) in order to draw out logics of regional image consciousness and to distinguish among types of regional image management efforts. As regional communities of states, Africa and Southeast Asia promoted and adhered to a relatively strict interpretation of the principle of non-interference during the Cold War period. In the post-Cold War era, the non-interference norm has eroded in both regions. In each, these developments constituted – in part – a collective image management strategy, aimed at external audiences. Reforms to regional institutions were promoted in part as efforts to ameliorate negative international perceptions.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Institutionalism, Regionalism, and Post Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, and Southeast Asia

2. Collective Regional Image: Logics of Consciousness and Modes of Management in Post-Cold War Africa and Southeast Asia

Author:
Brooke Coe
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
One distinguishing feature of the “new” regionalism is its outward orientation – the increased importance of the external dimension of regional cooperation. It makes sense, then, that efforts to manage external perceptions of a region, on the part of policy-relevant actors in that region, might contribute to important changes to regional norms and institutions. By and large, though, existing accounts of normative and institutional change at the regional level do not explicitly conceptualize and theorize collective image consciousness and management. This paper offers an initial attempt to address this conceptual gap, making use of two cases of regional image crisis (post-Cold War Africa and post-1997 Southeast Asia) in order to draw out logics of regional image consciousness and to distinguish among types of regional image management efforts. As regional communities of states, Africa and Southeast Asia promoted and adhered to a relatively strict interpretation of the principle of non-interference during the Cold War period. In the post-Cold War era, the non-interference norm has eroded in both regions. In each, these developments constituted – in part – a collective image management strategy, aimed at external audiences. Reforms to regional institutions were promoted in part as efforts to ameliorate negative international perceptions.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Institutionalism, Regionalism, and Post Cold War
Political Geography:
Africa, Asia, and Southeast Asia

3. Primary or Secondary? Regionalism’s Multiple Roles in Brazil’s International Emergence

Author:
Stephen Clarkson
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Of all the countries identified as rising powers on the world stage, Brazil appears to have drawn considerable economic and political strength from its engagement with various forms of regionalism during the expansionist years when Lula was president. Whether by helping create a local, intra-regional entity (Mercosul) or, later, proposing a continental one (UNASUL), Brasilia appeared to have the capacity to further its own economic and political interests by generating cooperative interactions with its smaller neighbors. Subsequently it took a leading role in inter-regional negotiations between Mercosul and the European Union in the global North and between Mercosul and ASEAN in the global South. More recently still, it spread its wings by associating trans-regionally with powers that are similarly dominant within their own regions – IBSA (India, Brazil, and South Africa) and BRICS (Russia, India, China, and South Africa) which shared with it a desire to play greater roles in the major institutions of global governance. While these new associations have their inner raisons d’être, belonging to them also bolsters Brazil’s weight in such traditional multilateral organizations as the United Nations and the WTO which were previously dominated by the US-Europe-Japan triad. This working paper assesses the relative importance of these different regionalisms in Brazil’s emergence on the global stage by counterposing them with such standard explanations of a state’s global significance as its military might, economic strength, and its soft-power influence overseas. We identify how various regionalisms interact with traditional bilateral and multilateral relations in helping or hindering Brazil in its global ascent. We conclude to our surprise that regionalism has only played a minimally positive role economically. Even politically, it has on occasion become more hindrance than help in boosting Brazil into its current orbit – as its announced intention to negotiate separately with the EU suggests.
Topic:
Military Strategy, European Union, Regionalism, and BRICS
Political Geography:
Europe, Asia, Brazil, South America, and North America

4. Piling on: The Rise of Sanctions Cooperation between Regional Organizations, the United States, and the EU

Author:
Inken von Borzyskowski and Clara Portelia
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
When a country is sanctioned for violating international rules today, it is usually targeted by several different entities. The degree to which sanctions by different senders overlap remains a largely unexplored phenomenon. In this paper, we examine the extent of sanctions cooperation, i.e. joint action among major sanctions senders (the US, the EU, and regional organizations) against identical targets. We then map regional patterns and evaluate one potential explanation for them. Our analysis leads to three major findings. First, sanctions overlap is predominant and has consistently increased over the last three decades. Twothirds of sanctions involve more than a single sender. Targets today are usually subject to punishment by at least three different sanctions senders (up from one in 1980) and sometimes up to six different senders. Second, world regions vary widely in the extent of sanctions cooperation, the profile of sanctions senders, and their interactions. Third, to explain variation in sanctions cooperation, we find that hegemonic stability theory does not provide much leverage. We conclude by outlining avenues for future research on sanctions cooperation relating to sanctions onset and effectiveness.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Sanctions, European Union, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and North America

5. Development Banks and Regional Powers: An Analytical Framework

Author:
Stefano Palestini
Publication Date:
11-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Why do regional powers such as Brazil, South Africa, or Russia undertake different collective strategies to supply public goods in their regions of influence? When do those states prefer to delegate competences to existent multilateral financial institutions, such as regional development banks (RDBs), and when do they prefer to make use of their own national financial instruments? Why do those states create new RDBs that challenge the existing ones? The article builds and tests a set of hypotheses based on the interplay between capabilities and legitimacy to help answer these questions using contemporary South America as a case study. Through a process tracing analysis carried out for the period 2000–15, the article explains the different strategies undertaken by two states, Brazil and Venezuela, to supply infrastructure in the region, ranging from the use of the Brazilian National Development Bank to the creation of a new Bank of the South. It is suggested that the low capabilities and legitimacy expectations of both states explain the rising importance of external actors in the supply of regional public goods that we are currently witnessing in South America.
Topic:
Development, Regional Cooperation, Banks, Regionalism, and Financial Institutions
Political Geography:
Brazil, South America, Venezuela, and Global South

6. Early, Old, New and Comparative Regionalism: The Scholarly Development of the Field

Author:
Fredrik Soderbaum
Publication Date:
10-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
By tracing the intellectual roots and main characteristics of the scholarly debates on regionalism in different time periods, this Working Paper seeks to contribute to the consolidation of a fragmented field of study in search of its own intellectual history. The paper identifies four main intellectual phases: early regionalism, old regionalism (in both Europe and the developing world), new regionalism, and the current phase of regionalism, referred to as comparative regionalism. It argues that progress in the study of (comparative) regionalism requires a better understanding of the intellectual roots of the field and an acknowledgment of the many types of regions that have occurred in many different historical contexts.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Developing World, Intellectual History, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

7. So Far, So Functional? Examining Functional and Counter-Functional Dynamics in Authoritarian Regional Cooperation

Author:
Ed Stoddard
Publication Date:
12-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG)
Abstract:
Regional cooperation, once largely the preserve of democracies, is now seen in many regions characterized by autocracy. Indeed, authoritarian leaders increasingly cooperate regionally, above all to augment the resilience of their regimes. While the output from this cooperation differs considerably from liberal-democratic regionalism, the experience of European integration nevertheless sheds light on an important underlying dynamic within this growing autocratic cooperation. Indeed, as with early and mid-stage European regional integration, authoritarian regionalism is driven by functional demands arising from the limited access nature of their regimes. However, countervailing ideational dynamics (such as the increasing salience of identity and legitimacy issues), which affect regional cooperation, are present in many cases. These counter-functional dynamics largely pre-date regionalist efforts but appear to be exacerbated by regional cooperation. This paper examines the interplay between functional demands and counter-functional dynamics in the context of ‘protective regionalisms’ in Eurasia, the Gulf, and West Africa. As global politics becomes more polarized, with regionalism seen as a source of strength for authoritarian states, the dynamics and underlying logics of such projects become increasingly important.
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Authoritarianism, Geopolitics, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, Asia, West Africa, and Persian Gulf