Europe Of Regions Research Articles

Book Review: Europe: European Regionalism and the Left

Book Review: Europe: European Regionalism and the Left

Exploring authority migration in multilevel architectures: A historical-institutionalist framework

This article develops a framework for analyzing the dynamics of multilevel politics inspired by historical institutionalism. It suggests that this approach has much potential to re-focus an increasingly diversified scholarly landscape, comprising fields like European integration, comparative federalism and regionalization, by promoting a more nuanced understanding of the varieties of institutional dynamics in multilevel architectures. The article seeks to make a threefold contribution. First, it conceptualizes multilevel architectures as an institutional outcome of political restructuring which are subject to different patterns of authority migration over time. Second, it proposes typological criteria to systematically compare such patterns of institutional change by distinguishing their direction, pace and depth. Third, it speculates on the mechanisms that can explain divergent patterns of authority migration. Overall, it is argued that the historical ordering of institutional linkages between territorial authorities leads to differently composed multilevel architectures, which in turn shape the patterns and pathways of authority migration at later points in time. Case studies from North America and Europe illustrate the value of this analytical framework for the comparative investigation of continuity and change in and of multilevel systems.

The Greater Mekong Subregion programme: reflections for a renewed paradigm of regionalism

Southeast Asia shares many similarities with Europe, among others, deep economic, historic and cultural ties, as well as the trauma of wars, which led to the desire to turn battlefields into marketplaces. However, in Southeast Asia, regional economic integration has preceded institutional integration, reversing the order of European integration. Despite drawing on different models of integration, programmes favouring the setting up of cross-border and transnational areas have burgeoned both within the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) development programme, supported by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) since the early 1990s, is currently one of the most dynamic transnational integration processes occurring in mainland Southeast Asia. Among the flagship initiatives of the programme are three economic corridors that have revived the ancient caravan trade routes and networks, which once traversed the Indochinese peninsula. This article sketches out the specificities of the GMS integration by examining the “corridor approach”. As institutional regionalism in Europe appears to have encountered problems, and Southeast Asia seems to have stretched its open and network-based integration model to a great extent, the main argument of this essay is that reflections on the success and the limits of the GMS’ specific type of integration can contribute to a new understanding of regionalism, particularly in Asia.

Introduction to the special section: minority politics and the territoriality principle in Europe

Territorial arrangements for managing interethnic relations within states are far from consensual. Although self-governance for minorities is commonly advocated, international documents are ambiguously formulated. Conflicting pairs of principles, territoriality vs. personality, and self-determination vs. territorial integrity, along with diverging state interests account for this gap. Together, the articles in this special section address the territoriality principle and its hardly operative practice on the ground, with particular attention to European cases. An additional theme reveals itself in the articles: the ambiguity of minority recognition politics. This introductory article briefly presents these two common themes, followed by an outline of three recent proposals discussed especially in Eastern Europe that seek to bypass the controversial territorial autonomy model: cultural rights in municipalities with a “substantial” proportion of minority members; the cultural autonomy model; and European regionalism and multi-level governance.

Pathways to an East Asian Higher Education Area: a comparative analysis of East Asian and European regionalization processes

The Author argues that historical regional developments in Europe and East Asia greatly influence the formation of an East Asian Higher Education Area. As such, this article compares European and East Asian regionalization and higher education regionalization processes to show this path dependency in East Asian regionalization of higher education on its regionalization process. Lastly, the author advances that (1) defining the East Asian region; (2) developing regional guidelines/frameworks; and (3) establishing sub-regional higher education areas, using regional guidelines/frameworks, need to be done prior to integrating into an East Asian Higher Education Area. This integration process is to be advanced by institutionalizing regional mobility, quality assurance and mutual recognition of higher education and professional qualification with the establishment of regional institutions focused on these areas.

Regionalism and border regions in modern Europe. The case of Upper Silesia in context

Border regions are a widely studied research topic these days. As 'lands in between', the people living were caught between two or more competing national movements and/or nation states. In this article the author explores the political and social dimensions of regional identification. Moreover, he shows through the example of Upper Silesia how the population of the borderlands had to find various strategies to cope with the homogenising pressure of nation states and national movements. An earlier version of this article was published in:O. Bartov & E.D. Weitz (eds.), Shatterzone of empires. Coexistence and violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman borderlands (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013).

Severe weather affecting European transport systems: the identification, classification and frequencies of events

Severe weather can have serious repercussions in the transport sector as a whole by increasing the number of accidents, injuries and other damage, as well as leading to highly increased travel times. This study, a component of the EU FP7 Project EWENT, delineates a Europe-wide climatology of adverse and extreme weather events that can be expected to affect the transport network. We first define and classify the relevant severe weather events by investigating the effects of hazardous conditions on different transportation modes and the infrastructure. Consideration is given to individual phenomena such as snowfall, heavy precipitation, heat waves, cold spells, wind gusts; a combined phenomenon, the blizzard, is also considered. The frequency of severe weather events, together with the changes in their spatial extension and intensity, is analyzed based on the E-OBS dataset (1971–2000) and the ERA-Interim reanalysis dataset (1989–2010). Northern Europe and the Alpine region are the areas most impacted by winter extremes, such as snowfall, cold spells and winter storms, the frequency of heavy snowfall. The frequency of hot days is highest in Southern Europe. Severe winds and blizzards are the most common over the Atlantic and along its shores. Although heavy rainfall may affect the whole continent on an annual basis, extreme precipitation events are relative sparse, affecting particularly the Alps and the Atlantic coastline. A European regionalization covering similar impacts on the transport network is performed.

New regionalism in Europe's Black Sea Region: the EU, BSEC and changing practices of regionalism

What kind of region is the wider Black Sea area (WBSA)? Is it constructed by practices of regionalism framed by the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), or does it follow a more inclusive scheme of integration, propelled by European Union (EU) policy instruments such as the Black Sea Synergy? This paper investigates the very nature of regionalism in the Black Sea region by focusing on trade integration. It measures and compares how patterns of intra-regional and cross-regional trade have been diverted in the WBSA by the BSEC and the EU between 1993 and 2008. The paper argues that the WBSA, overall, has inherited strong intra-regional trade preferences, but it questions the actual capacity of the BSEC to act as an effective promoter of regionalisation. It shows in particular that the EU has been reshaping the patterns of trade in the WBSA in a more significant manner than the BSEC. This indicates a shift from regionalism à la BSEC (nesting the WBSA within Europe), to EU-driven regionalism (interweaving differentially the WBSA states within a larger continental-scale scheme regionalism).

Prospects for deepening Mercosur integration: Economic asymmetry and institutional deficits

ABSTRACT Mercosur faces a number of challenges in furthering its regional integration. This article considers whether theories developed for European regionalism, such as neo-functionalism and liberal inter-governmentalism, provide a suitable framework for analysing the Mercosur case. The article argues that economic and policy asymmetries as well as institutional, social and economic deficits hamper deepening regionalism. These asymmetries and deficits also jeopardise the further benefits that could arise from building on Mercosur's considerable achievements. Finally, the analysis warns against the dangers of politicisation of Mercosur and the importance of societal inclusion. It suggests that top-down state-led Mercosur regionalism could benefit from being turned upside-down by bottom-up societal interest in deeper integration in the current shifting international economic context.

Re-significando la frontera: el caso de la eurociudad Chaves-Verín

Texto resumen.

Mestiçagem, identidade e consciência política. o caso do movimento literário caboverdiano “Claridade”

The question of Cape Verdean identity is still not distinct. The debate, which is even as old as the archipelago, has occupied Cape Verdean intellectuals of all the generations. Sometimes regarded as a case of European regionalism sometimes as that of African regionalism, and even as belonging to a sixth continent, Cape Verde is still looking for its identity, which is left to the convulsive movements of the political and ideological interests

Constructing Labour Regionalism in Europe and the Americas, 1920s–1970s

AbstractThis article provides an analysis of the construction of labour regionalism between the 1920s and 1970s. By means of a comparative examination of the supranational labour structures in Europe and the Americas prior to World War II and of the decentralized structure of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), I attempt to defend the argument that regionalism was a labour leaders' construct that responded to three issues: the quest for power among the largest trade-union organizations within the international trade-union movement; mutual distrust between labour leaders of large, middle-sized, and small unions from different regions; and (real or imaginary) common interests among labour leaders from the same region. These push-and-pull factors led to the construction of regional labour identifications that emphasized “otherness” in the world of international labour. A regional labour identity was intended to supplement, not undermine, national identity. As such, this study fills a lacuna in the scholarly literature on international relations and labour internationalism, which has given only scant attention to the regional level of international labour organization.

Regionalism, Democracy and National Self-Determination in Central Europe

The end of the Cold War and the accompanying easing of archival restrictions in former communist countries have created a veritable renaissance in historical literature on the region in the last two decades. The fall of the Iron Curtain has subsequently thrown into doubt the historiographical salience of a strict East–West divide and prompted the resurgence of analytic concepts such as Central Europe or East Central Europe. The former term, defined famously but imprecisely in the 1980s by Milan Kundera as those lands ‘culturally in the West and politically in the East’, has grown no easier to delimit with the march of European integration and democratic stability across most of the ‘central’ part of the continent. The latter term is, in some senses, less problematic, since the ‘East’ in East Central Europe is generally understood to exclude those areas in current-day Germany or Austria. Yet the region's eastern and southern borders are still much disputed.

Book Review: Europe: Europe, Regions and European Regionalism

Book Review: Europe: Europe, Regions and European Regionalism

Deepening regionalism in Europe and ASEAN – the role of an economic constitution

The article examines the creation of an internal market in Europe and Southeast Asia from the perspective of constitutional economics. It assesses whether the success or failure of a regional integration process depends on the quality of the economic constitution that is chosen by participating countries, that is, on the set of rules and institutions, which bind the actions and transactions of operators within a jurisdiction and towards the operators of other jurisdictions. The article commences with an overview of the analytical instruments of constitutional economics in order to evaluate the success of a regional agreement on the basis of the ‘quality’ of its economic constitution. It then examines internal market creation in the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN). The article concludes that it is the commitment to the implementation of a social contract that determines the successful establishment of a single market.

Europe, Regions and European Regionalism – Edited by R. Scully and R. Wyn Jones

JCMS: Journal of Common Market StudiesVolume 50, Issue 3 p. 533-534 Europe, Regions and European Regionalism – Edited by R. Scully and R. Wyn Jones RAJEESH KUMAR, RAJEESH KUMAR Jawahar Lal Nehru UniversitySearch for more papers by this author RAJEESH KUMAR, RAJEESH KUMAR Jawahar Lal Nehru UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 April 2012 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.2012.02247_6.xRead the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume50, Issue3May 2012Pages 533-534 RelatedInformation

Four dialogues and the funeral of a beautiful relationship: European studies and new regionalism

This article engages in the debate on (the study of) regionalism in providing an overview of the nexus between European Studies (ES) and (New) Regionalism (NR). While the immediate purpose for doing so is to set the stage for the future debate on regional dynamics, this exploration can also be perceived as a case study into (the plurality of forms of) inter/intra-disciplinary dialogue demonstrating the necessity of engaging in ‘dialogues about dialogues’. The article starts by developing a new typology of four different ideal-typical notions of dialogue: hierarchical, reflexive, transformative and eristic models of dialogue. Each of these models is then used to examine different ways of answering questions about why a dialogue between ES/NR should be of interest or not; what ES has to offer; what the coveted impact of such a dialogue is supposed to be; and, finally, which promises and pitfalls such a conversation holds. In this fashion, the stage for future debate addressing regional integration is outlined. It is concluded that these futures look bleak, however, especially because ES and NR no longer appear as each other’s ideal partner-in-dialogue and the relationship is likely to come to an end and hence await its own funeral.

‘Europe of the Regions’ and the problem of boundaries in liberal democratic theory

The article explores the concept of culture as a criterion for political boundaries, and finds both prominent positions on the cultural criterion in contemporary liberal democratic theory—liberal nationalism and its cosmopolitan opposition—inadequate. To this end, the article compares two opposing visions of culture-based regionalism in Europe, developed by Green parties and by parties of the new far-right, respectively. The comparison indicates that the exclusionary meanings of culture as a criterion for political boundaries, typical for the new far-right, dominate the notion of culture in this context in general—despite the ecologists' efforts to appropriate the cultural criterion and reinvent it. The ensuing difficulty for the theoretical positions is: (1) an inclusive and pluralist notion of culture as a criterion for political boundaries is currently unavailable, and (2) particularities are conceptually indispensible in a theory of political borders—replacing cultural particularism by no particularism is implausible.

Unusual Regionalism in Northern Europe: The Barents Region in the Making

Zimmerbauer K. Unusual regionalism in Northern Europe: the Barents Region in the making, Regional Studies. This paper focuses on the institutionalization of the supra-national Barents Region, which is located in the extreme north of Europe and consists of the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. The aim is to scrutinize how this newly conceived region has become institutionalized as a manifestation of business-oriented regionalist aspirations and international geopolitics. The case study contributes to the ongoing discussions on the power of regionalism and the construction of ‘regional competitiveness’. These discussions are set against the issues of identity within emerging regional spaces. The analysis is also linked to the advocates/activists dichotomy and the controversial ‘relational turn’ in regional geography. 区域建构 超国家区域 制度化 巴伦支海 Zimmerbauer K. 北欧非同寻常的区域主义：逐渐成形的巴伦支海地区，区域研究。本文重点关注超国家的巴伦支海地区的制度化，这一区域位于欧洲最北部，组成区域包括挪威、瑞典、芬兰及俄罗斯北部。文章旨在审议这一新近概念化的区域如何反映出以业务为导向的区域需求和国际地缘政治。本案例分析丰富了目前针对地区主义的权力和”区域竞争力”构建相关的讨论。此类讨论均分析了区域空间中的定位问题。本文的分析是基于区域地理学中备受争议的倡导者/活动家二分法以及”相关论转向”。 Construction régionale Régions supranationales Institutionnalisation Barents Zimmerbauer K. Un régionalisme original dans l'Europe du Nord: la région de Barents en marche, Regional Studies. Cet article porte sur l'institutionnalisation de la région supranationale de Barents qui est située à l'extrême nord de l'Europe et comprend les zones septentrionales de la Norvège, de la Suède, de la Finlande et de la Russie. On cherche à examiner comment cette région nouvellement établie s'est institutionnalisée comme manifestation des aspirations régionalistes orientées vers le commerce et de la géopolitique internationale. L'étude de cas contribue au débat en cours sur la force du régionalisme et le développement de la ‘compétitivité régionale’. Ce débat se déroule à la lumière des questions de l'identité au sein des espaces régionales naissantes. L'analyse se rapporte aussi à la dichotomie défenseurs/activistes et au ‘virage relationnel’ controversé dans la géographie régionale. Aufbau von Regionen Supranationale Regionen Institutionalisierung Barents Zimmerbauer K. Ungewöhnlicher Regionalismus in Nordeuropa: das Entstehen der Barentsregion, Regional Studies. Im Mittelpunkt dieses Beitrags steht die Institutionalisierung der supranationalen Barentsregion im hohen Norden Europas, die aus den nördlichen Teilen von Norwegen, Schweden, Finnland und Russland besteht. Untersucht werden soll, wie diese neu konzipierte Region als Ausdruck der geschäftsorientierten regionalistischen Aspirationen und internationalen Geopolitik institutionalisiert wurde. Die Fallstudie versteht sich als Beitrag zu den andauernden Diskussionen über die Macht des Regionalismus und die Konstruktion von ‘regionaler Wettbewerbsfähigkeit’. Diese Diskussionen erfolgen vor dem Hintergrund von Fragen der Identität innerhalb neu entstehender regionaler Räume. Ebenso ist die Analyse mit der Dichotomie der Fürsprecher/Aktivisten und der umstrittenen ‘relationalen Wende’ in der regionalen Geografie verknüpft. Creación de regiones Regiones supranacionales Institucionalización Barents Zimmerbauer K. Regionalismo inusual en el norte de Europa: la región de Barents en ciernes, Regional Studies. En este artículo prestamos atención a la institucionalización de la región supranacional de Barents, que se encuentra en el extremo norte de Europa y está formada por las zonas septentrionales de Noruega, Suecia, Finlandia y Rusia. Con ello pretendemos examinar de qué modo esta nueva región se ha institucionalizado como una manifestación de las aspiraciones regionalistas con orientación comercial y de la geopolítica internacional. Este estudio de caso contribuye a los continuos debates sobre el poder del regionalismo y la construcción de la ‘competitividad regional’. Estos debates se sitúan en el contexto de cuestiones de identidad dentro de los espacios regionales emergentes. El análisis también está vinculado con la dicotomía de defensores/activistas y el controvertido ‘giro relacional’ en la geografía regional.

European Regionalism and Migration Global Governance

L’objectif de cette recherche etait d’examiner chez les enfants, l’effet de l’ethnie et du genre sur les attitudes ethniques implicites et explicites. Dans cette perspective, une etude a ete menee en France aupres de 76 enfants Maghrebins et Francais. Les attitudes explicites etaient mesurees par le recours a une tâche de classement de photos. Une tâche d’association implicite (« IAT ») permettait d’acceder aux attitudes implicites des sujets. Les resultats revelent que les attitudes des enfants sont significativement moderees par le statut de leur groupe d’appartenance. Les enfants Francais (haut statut) expriment un biais pro-endogroupe explicite et implicite. Alors qu’au niveau explicite, les enfants Maghrebins (faible statut) n’expriment aucun biais, un biais pro-exogroupe emerge au niveau implicite. Toutefois, un biais pro-exogroupe explicite et implicite apparait clairement chez les filles Maghrebines.