Lecture Notes

A WORLD OF REGIONS

Governments, associations, societies, and groups form regional organizations and/or

networks as a way of coping with the challenges of globalization. Globalization has made
people aware of the world in general, but it has also made Filipinos more cognizant of specific
areas such as Southeast Asia. How, for instance, did the Philippines come to identify itself with
the Southeast Asian region? Why is it part of a regional grouping known as the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)?
While regionalism is often seen as a political and economic phenomenon, the term
actually encompasses a broader area. It can be examined in relation to identities, ethics,
religion, ecological sustainability, and health. Regionalism is also a process and must be
treated as an "emergent, socially constituted phenomenon." It means that regions are not
natural or given; rather, they are constructed and defined by policymakers, economic actors,
and even social movements.
This lesson will look at regions as political entities and examine what brings them
together as they interlock with globalization. The other facets of regionalism will then be
explored, especially those that pertain to identities, ethics, religion, ecological sustainability, and
health. The lesson will conclude by asking where all these regionalisms are bringing us as
members of a nation and as citizens of the world.

Countries, Regions, and Globalization

Edward D. Mansfield and Helen V. Milner state that economic and political definitions of
regions vary, but there are certain basic features that everyone can agree on. First, regions
are "group of countries located in the same geographically specified area" or are "an
amalgamation of two regions (or) a combination of more than two regions" organized to
regulate and "oversee flows and policy choices."» Second, the words regionalization and
regionalism should not be interchanged, as the former refers to the "regional
concentration of economic flows" while the latter is" political process characterized by
economic policy cooperation and coordination among countries."
Countries respond to globalization in a variety of ways, both economically and politically.
Some are large enough and wealthy enough to be able to decide how they participate in global
integration processes. China, for instance, offers its cheap labor and large workforce to entice
foreign companies and grow commerce with countries it once saw as adversaries but now sees
them as consumers for its goods (e.g., the United States and Japan). Other countries
compensate for their limited size by capitalizing on their advantageous geographic location.
Singapore and Switzerland make up for their lack of resources by becoming financial and
banking powerhouses. Singapore improved its harbor facilities and established them as a first-
class transit port for ships transporting various commodities from Africa, Europe, the Middle
East, and mainland Southeast Asia to Asia-Pacific countries. In most cases, however, countries
form a regional alliance, for-as the saying goes there is strength in numbers.
Countries form regional associations for several reasons. One is for military
defense. The most widely known defense grouping is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) formed during the Cold War when several Western European countries plus the United
States agreed to protect Europe against the threat of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union
responded by creating its regional alliance, the Warsaw Pact, consisting of the Eastern
Europenan countries under the Soviet domination. The Soviet Union imploded in December
1991, but NATO remains in place. 
Countries also form regional organizations to pool their resources, get better returns for
their exports, as well as expand their leverage against trading partners. The Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to regulate the production and sale of oil. This regional
alliance flexed its muscles in the 1970s when its member countries took over domestic
production and dictated crude oil prices in the world market. In a world highly dependent on oil,
this integration became a source of immense power. OPEC's success convinced nine other oil-
producing countries to join it.
Moreover, there are countries that form regional blocs to protect their independence
from the pressures of superpower politics. The presidents of Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia,
and Yugoslavia created the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961 to pursue world peace and
international cooperation, human rights, national sovereignty, racial and national equality, non-
intervention, and peaceful conflict resolution. It called itself non-aligned because the association
refused to side with either the First World capitalist democracies in Western Europe and North
America or the communist states in Eastern Europe. The NAM had 120 member countries at its
peak. However, the movement was never official and continues to exist today but with less vigor
than in the past.
Finally, economic downturns force governments to band together. In 1996, after foreign
currency speculators and worried international banks demanded that the Thai government
repay its loans, the Thai economy collapsed. Its economy was bankrupted as a result of a quick
withdrawal of foreign capital. This crisis began to spread to other Asian countries as their
currencies were also devalued and foreign investments were left in a hurry. The International
Monetary Fund (IMF) tried to reverse the crisis, but it was only after the ASEAN countries, along
with China, Japan, and South Korea, agreed to establish an emergency fund to anticipate a
crisis that the Asian economies stabilized.
The crisis made ASEAN more "unified and coordinated." The Association has come a
long way since it was formed as a coalition of countries which were pro-American and
supportive of the United States intervention in Vietnam. After the Vietnam War, ASEAN
continued to act as a military alliance to isolate Vietnam when it invaded Cambodia; but there
were also the beginnings of economic cooperation.
Better coordination has also yielded positive results in academic and intellectual
exchanges. While each member country continue to support their respective nation universities,
there has also evolved in the last few years a new regional perspective: ASEAN Studies.
Member countries have actively promoted this perspective, and it is gradually displacing
"Southeast Asian" studies which originated in the West. This is a good sign as Western
universities have been losing interest in Southeast Asia. With that being said, ASEAN studies
may also have a drawback. Since it is supported by the member countries, it may not be
supportive of studies that are critical of ASEAN and its members.

Non-State Regionalism
It is not only states that agree to work together in the name of a single cause (or
causes). Communities also engage in regional organization. This "new regionalism" varies in
form; they can be "tiny associations that include no more than a few actors and focus on a
single issue or huge continental unions that address a multitude of common problems from
territorial defense to food security."" Organizations representing this "new regionalism" likewise
rely on the power of individuals, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and associations to
link up with one another in pursuit of a particular goal (or goals). Finally, "new regionalism" is
identified with reformists who share the same "values, norms, institutions, and system that exist
outside of the traditional, established mainstream institutions and systems."
Their strategies and tactics likewise vary. Some organizations partner with governments
to initiate social change. Those who work with governments ("legitimizers") participate in
"institutional mechanisms that afford some civil society groups voice and influence [in]
technocratic policy-making processes." For example, the ASEAN issued its Human Rights
Declaration in 2009, but the regional body left it to member countries to apply the declaration's
principles as they see fit. Aware that democratic rights are limited in many ASEAN countries,
"new regionalism" organizations used this official declaration to pressure these
governments to pass laws and regulations that protect and promote human rights.
In South America, left-wing governments support the Hemispheric Social Alliance's
opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), while members of the Mesa
de Articulación de Asociaciones Nacionales y Redes de ONGs de América Latina y El Caribe
(Roundtable of National Associations and Networks and NGOs in Latin America and the
Caribbean) participate in "forums, summits, and dialogues with presidents and ministers."
Likewise, a group called the Citizen Diplomacy Forum tries to influence the policies and
programs of the Organization of American States. In Southeast Asia, the Organization of
ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights was, in part, the result of non-government
organizations and civil society groups pushing to "prevent discrimination, uphold
political freedom, and promote democracy and human rights throughout the region."
Other regional organizations dedicate themselves to specialized causes. Activists across
Central and South America established the Rainforest Foundation to protect indigenous peoples
and the rainforests in Brazil, Guyana, Panama, and Peru. Young Christians across Asia, Africa,
the Middle East, the Americas, and the Caribbean formed Regional Interfaith Youth Networks to
promote "conflict prevention, resolution, peace education, and sustainable development.The
Migrant Forum in Asia is another regional network of NGOs and trade unions "committed to
protect[ing] and promot[ing] the rights and welfare of migrant workers."
The moral standing of these organizations as well as their capacity to combine
lobbying and pressure politics are their key assets. Unfortunately, the majority of them are
underfunded, putting them at a disadvantage when dealing with their government counterparts
who have access to large sums of money. As a result, their influence on global politics is limited.
New regionalism differs significantly from traditional state-to-state regionalism
when it comes to identifying problems. For example, states treat poverty or
environmental degradation as technical or economic issues that can be resolved by
refining existing programs of state agencies, making minor changes in economic
policies, and creating new offices that address these issues. However, proponents of
new regionalism, such as the NGO Global Forum, regard these problems as the result of
flawed economic development and environmental models. They use the term "flawed" to
describe economic growth plans that are market-based, profit-driven, and have little
regard for social welfare, particularly among the poor.
Another challenge for new regionalists is the discord that may emerge among them. For
example, disagreements surface over issues such as gender and religion, with pro-choice
NGOs breaking from religious civil society groups that side with the Church, Muslim imams, or
governments which oppose reproductive rights and other pro-women policies. Moreover, while
civil society groups are able to dialogue with governments, the latter may not be welcoming to
this new trend and set up one obstacle after another. Migrant Forum Asia and its ally, the
Coordination of Action Research on AIDS (CARAM), lobbied ASEAN governments to defend
migrant labor rights. Their program of action, however, slowed down once countries such as
Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand refused to recognize the rights of undocumented migrant
workers and the rights of the families of migrants.
Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism
Today, regionalism faces multiple challenges, the most serious of which is the
resurgence of militant nationalism and populism. The refusal to dismantle NATO after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, for example, has become the basis of the anti-NATO
rhetoric of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Now, even the relationship of the United States-the
alliance's core member-with NATO has become problematic after Donald Trump
demonized the organization as simply leeching off American military power without
giving anything in return.
Perhaps the most crisis-ridden regional organization of today is the European Union.
The continuing financial crisis of the region is forcing countries such as Greece to consider
leaving the Union to gain more flexibility in their economic policy. Anti-immigrant sentiment and
a populist campaign against Europe have already led to the United Kingdom voting to leave the
European Union in a move the media has termed the "Brexit."
ASEAN members continue to disagree over the extent to which member countries
should sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of regional stability. The Association's link with
East Asia has also been problematic. Recently, ASEAN countries also disagreed over how to
relate to China, with the Philippines unable to get the other countries to support its
condemnation of China's Occupation of the West Philippine Sea. Cambodia and Laos led the
opposition, favoring diplomacy over confrontation, but the real reason was the dramatic increase
of Chinese investments and economic aid to these countries. Moreover, when some formerly
authoritarian countries democratized, this "participatory regionalism" clashed with ASEAN's
policy of non-interference as civil society groups in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand
demanded that the other countries that democratized adopt a more open attitude towards
foreign criticism.
In 2021, non-interference has become the norm of ASEAN. Early that year, the
Burmese military's arrest of the president of the country, Aung San Syu Ki, and leaders of the
opposition, had led to massive popular protests in the cities. There had been academic and
political discussions outside Myanmar that were critical of the miltiary's action. Civil society
groups in Southeast Asia and elsewhere have also appealed to their respective governments to
pressure the military to ease up and release those arrested. Not only have ASEAN governments
refused to act, citing the principle of not interfering in domestic politics, there had also been
attempts to silence Burmese activists living abroad and words of caution towards academic and
even policy discussions on the state of Burmese politics.
Finally, there are diverse perspectives on what regionalism should be used for. Regional
organizations may be viewed by Western countries as agents of political democratization as
well as economic formations. However, non-Western and developing countries may hold a
dissimilar perspective on globalization, development, and democracy. For Singapore, China,
and Russia, democracy is a barrier to the implementation and deepening of economic
globalization because continual public scrutiny of economic projects and protracted debate
hinder implementation or result in ambiguous results. Democracy's tedious procedures must,
therefore, give way to efficiency.

Conclusion
Official regional associations now cover vast swaths of the world. The population of the
countries that joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Council (APEC) alone comprised 37% of the
world's population in 2007. These countries are also part of "smaller" organizations that include
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the North
American Free Trade Agreement, the Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, and the Union of
South American Nations. Even “isolationist" North Korea is part of the Regional Forum, which
discusses security issues in the region.
In the same way the countries will find it difficult to reject all forms of global economic
integration, it will also be hard for them to turn their backs on their regions. Even if the UK
leaves the EU, it must continue to trade with its immediate neighbors; it will, therefore, be forced
to implement many EU rules. None of this is to say that regional organizations will remain
unaltered. The history of regionalism shows that regional associations emerge as new global
concerns arise. The future of regionalism will be contingent on the immense changes in global
politics that will emerge in the 21st century.

Reference:

Abinales, P., & Claudio L. (2022). The Contemporary World. Second Edition.