Global Governance 12 (2006), 233– 240

GLOBAL INSIGHTS

Enhancing Global Governance

Through Regional Integration
c

Ramesh Thakur and Luk Van Langenhove

G
lobal governance—governance for the world without world govern-
ment—refers to cooperative problem-solving arrangements on a
global plane.1 These may be rules (laws, norms, codes of behavior)
as well as constituted institutions and practices (formal and informal) to
manage collective affairs by a variety of actors (state authorities, intergov-
ernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations, private sector
entities). Global governance thus refers to the complex of formal and infor-
mal institutions, mechanisms, relationships, and processes between and
among states, markets, citizens, and organizations—both intergovernmental
and nongovernmental—through which collective interests are articulated,
rights and obligations are established, and differences are mediated.2
Such global governance faces a fundamental paradox. The policy
authority for tackling global problems and mobilizing the necessary re-
sources is vested primarily at the country level, in states, while the source
and scale of the problems and potential solutions to them are transnational,
regional, and global. One result of this situation is that states have the
capacity to disable decisionmaking and policy implementation by global
bodies like the United Nations (UN), but they generally lack the vision and
will to empower and enable global problem solving on issues such as envi-
ronmental degradation, human trafficking, terrorism, and nuclear weapons.
Could regionalization, by inserting an additional level of governance
between the state and the world, provide a satisfactory resolution of this
paradox? What are the implications of regionalism and interregionalism for
global governance and world order? Do these developments herald a shift
from a world order based on sovereign states toward one based on regions?
Where does the UN enter into such a picture?
Today’s world needs global governance, but most people fear the idea
of a centralized, all-powerful world government. Thus, the goal of most
contemporary proponents of global governance is the creation not of a

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world government, but of various layers of consultation and decisionmaking.

The construction of multilayered governance networks could establish a gen-
uine global rule of law without centralized global institutions. In this model,
“good” global governance would not imply exclusive policy jurisdiction by
any one site, but rather an optimal partnership between state, regional, and
global levels of actors and between state, intergovernmental, and nongovern-
mental categories of actors. Structured, systematized frameworks for collec-
tive action at the regional level can offer an escape from the bind between
unilateralism at the state level versus multilateralism at the global level.

Regionalization

The term regional integration is often confusing. Not only has the concept
been used imprecisely, but it also lacks a single, widely accepted definition.
As understood here, regional integration refers to a process in which a
group of (usually contiguous) countries moves from a condition of partial
or utter isolation toward one of partial or complete unification. The shift
involves a progressive lowering of internal boundaries within the integrat-
ing zone and a de facto relative rise of external boundaries vis-à-vis coun-
tries outside the region. Regional integration does not have to—although it
often does—involve the construction of some kind of permanent formal
institutional structure of mutual cooperation among the governments of the
countries involved.
Regional organizations have proliferated across the world over the past
sixty years. This growth in number and geographical coverage has been
accompanied by increased diversity in the “substance” or “content” of inte-
gration. For example, some regional integration projects are limited to the
achievement of economic integration among the countries concerned. Oth-
ers extend integration beyond purely economic concerns in a so-called new
regionalism,3 which holds that trade and economy cannot be isolated from
the rest of society. In this approach, integration can also encompass matters
of law, security, and culture.
The European Union (EU), the first and most advanced instance of
“new regionalism,” incorporates explicit political elements in a deep eco-
nomic integration. The EU requires that would-be member states meet cer-
tain standards of behavior in public and foreign policy before they can be
considered to be truly “European.” The new regionalism has also spread to
other continents, both through the creation of new organizations (e.g., the
Southern Common Market [Mercosur]) and through the upgrading of pre-
viously existing regional and subregional economic bodies (as with the
reinvention of the Organization of African Unity as the African Union).
Nevertheless, regionalism remains uneven across the world.