Interregional Relations

A New Level of Governance?

If regions include more than geographic conceptions of regions, interregional relations may not be such an [Page 495]empirically new phenomenon (though it has been characterized as such). What is new, however, is interest in interregional relations and interregionalism (as opposed to regionalism, for example) as an area of study, even level of analysis, in the study of global politics and as a new layer in a multilevel, multifaceted system of global governance.

As in discussions on regionalism, the significance of interregional relations for governance can be viewed in at least two ways. On the one hand, it can be seen as complementary or supplementary to global multilateralism—another level of governance to manage a complex and interdependent world. In this view, intensified globalization processes are also associated with the heightened theoretical and practical interest in interregional relations. Specifically, it is argued that intensified transnational flows, growing interdependence, and new security threats reveal the limitations of the state and heighten a functionalist demand for new cooperation. By this argument, the growth in interregional relations is neither different nor unique as a phenomenon compared with other forms of cooperation.

New interregional linkages between a U.S.–led North America and East Asia (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation, or APEC) and the New Transatlantic Agenda forged between Washington and the European Union (EU) might be seen as building blocks in a larger, unitary (and mostly neoliberal) world order. Subsidiarity arguments for the devolution of authority down from the global level (but in support of unified global objectives) may also apply.

On the other hand, developments in interregional relations may suggest a search for alternative arrangements and thus dissatisfaction with existing relationships and arrangements. In this view, interregional relations point to important tensions between different regionalisms and vis-à-vis a larger global economic order. Rather than globalization and interdependence, this view associates interregional developments with heightened economic competition, as well as the emergence of a U.S.–centric, if not unipolar, world order. By this view, interregional developments suggest a shift away from Cold War regionalisms that were mostly understood to be U.S. led or U.S. facilitated. Instead, the relationship between the United States and the growth in interregional relations may be more oppositional.

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