The global economy is built upon the powerful role of major super-regional (macro-regional) blocs in Europe, North America and East Asia. In addition, similar schemes have emerged in other parts of the world. In the wake of the end of the Cold War and the decline of Fordist mass production, there is a new key role for such macro-regions in articulating the processes o f capitalist development. This phase of macro-regional growth may be designated as the ‘new regionalism’ to distinguish it from the ‘old
regionalism’ of the period between the 1950s and 1970s. The ‘old regionalism’ can be understood only in the context of the bipolar Cold War structure o f that period; whereas the 'new regionalism’ has emerged out of the collapse of that structure and the impact of globalised flexible production (Marchand et al., 1999: 903).
ln response to these new trends, the so-called New Regionalism Approach/Theory (NRA/T), developed by Björn Hettke and colleagues at the World Institute for Development Economics Research (United Nations University, Helsinki) and the Department o f Peace and Development Research (Göteborg), has sought to develop a three-level analysis examining (1) the structure of the world system as a whole; (2), the level of inter-regional relations; and (3) the internal pattern of the single region. This is therefore quite a different perspective from that used in the period of the old regionalism, when the emphasis was on theories of regional (e.g. European) integration, as illustrated by the widespread application of functionalism and neo-functionalism (Marchand et al., 1999: 901-2).
To be more accurate, it may be better to refer to the ‘new regionalisms’ (in the plural), since the contemporary world exhibits a variety of patterns o f regionalism (including super-regionalism). These include key micro-regions, which are geographically smaller in scale and are based on inter- and intra-firm relations, but which have nonetheless come to play a key role in the dynamics o f the global economy. Underpinning all these patterns is ‘the regionalised accumulation of wealth through production and commodity chains and networks’, and the involvement of a wide range of formal and informal actors (Marchand et al., 1999: 905). The growth triangles of Southeast Asia, for example, are an important example o f régionalisation, but they are not at the same formal, institutionalised level as, say, ASEAN. While some forms o f régionalisation are clearly state-led (from above), as is the case with trade liberalisation, other forms o f régionalisation proceed at the informal grassroots level, e.g. through small cross-border production networks. The importance of the informal ‘second economy’ in less developed countries means that régionalisation may very well be more significant in this context than at the formal level of state-led activity:
The informal second economy covers a whole range o f activities from street vendors and small-scale informal cross-border trade to the warlordism o f Sierra Leone and Somalia and the large and intricate cross-border smuggling of gem
stones from Angola and Senegal, and drugs from Columbia, Nigeria and Burma to products of child labour in myriad enterprises around parts of the South, including ubiquitous Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or Export Processing Zones (EPZs) (Boas et al., 1999: 1065).
This perspective is further developed by Hettne and Soderbaum (2000), who suggest that the concept o f ‘regionness’ embraces five elements: regional area, regional complex, regional society, regional community and region-state. These five elements correspond to
increasing levels of regionness. Thus, the regional area is a geographical unit defined by
natural physical barriers and certain ecological characteristics. When we use such terms as Europe, North America or East Asia, we have in mind initially this sense o f a distinct regional area. From a social point o f view, such an area is a potential region and begins to develop in that direction through increased social contacts and transactions among its
constituent groups. Eventually, a regional complex emerges. Initially, however, the actual
sense of regionness may be weak - if, for example, the area concerned is dominated by nation-states claiming rights of sovereignty and a unique identity of their own. Thus, the regional order in nineteenth-century Europe was little more than a concert of nations.
A regional society emerges as non-state actors develop their relations across national boundaries and form the basis for a transnational regional economy and regional civil society. At the same time, there may be a formal level of regional unity, as in the establishment and development o f the EU. But this formal level is not coterminous with the informal level.
Various dimensions of regionalism and regionalizations occur at different spatial levels of regions, which to a large extent are all related to one another (and therefore must be understood within the same framework). It is particularly important therefore to explicitly integrate ‘micro-regions' and micro-regional isms into the analytical framework.
Micro-regionalism is related to macro-regionalism in the way that the larger régionalisation (and globalisation) processes create possibilities for smaller economically dynamic sub-national and transnational regions to get a direct access to the larger economic system, often bypassing the nation-state and the national
capital, and sometimes even as an alternative or opposition to the challenged state and to formal state-regional isms (Hettne and Soderbaum, 2000: 465).
The level of regionness increases further as a regional community emerges:
[T]he region increasingly turns into an active subject with a distinct identity, institutionalised or informal actor capability, legitimacy, and structure of decision-making in relation with a more or less responsive regional civil society, transcending the old state borders (Hettne and Soderbaum, 2000: 466).
A regional collective identity and the structure of a genuine security community emerge to challenge the primacy of the nation-state. The dividing line between different national communities becomes weaker. At the same time, micro-regions within the regional community still have the opportunity to flourish and actually contribute to the cross-border dynamism of the regional community. The EU is at the stage of developing a regional community.
Eventually, a regional community may become a region-state, with a new form of political
association based on a pooling of sovereignty and a recognition of the multi-cultural foundations of the association (since, by definition, cultural homogeneity in such a large area will be impossible).
By distinguishing the global, inter-regional and intra-regional levels and recognising that there are different levels of regionness, the interconnectedness of the various new regionalisms in the contemporary world becomes easier to appreciate. This also reminds us that we cannot easily generalise from one particular example of regionalism (e g. in Europe) and extend the lessons of that example to other parts of the world (e.g. East Asia). Regionalism in all its forms depends very much on the specific historical and geographical contexts in which it takes place.