The Ashgate Research Companion to Regionalisms

EU studies increasingly recognize the salience of new regional insights. Hence, this collection of original essays provides a broad overview of regionalism, together with detailed analyses on the construction, activities, and implications of both established and emerging examples of formal political and economic organizations as well as informal regional entities and networks. Section one covers theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of established and formal regionalism, emerging and informal regionalism, inter-regionalism, and levels of regionalism. Section two provides detailed case-studies of established and formal regionalisms: EU, NAFTA, ASEAN, SAARC, OAS, MERCOSUR, AU, ECOWAS, and SADC. Section three offers case-studies that investigate emerging and informal regionalisms in Oceania, the Arab League, BRICSAM, and the Commonwealth(s) as well as thought-provoking chapters on micro-regional processes evident in spatial development initiatives, transnational gangs, transfrontier conservation areas, and the migration-conflict nexus in natural resource sectors.