Exploring Regional Domains : A Comparative History of Regionalism

           This article expounds and exemplifies both the purport and significance of regionalism in the relations between countries in the world. The emergence of regionalism as the political ideology becomes prominently important in Cold War era. The establishment of both NATO and Warsaw Pact as well as the birth of term “South and North” cores, in turn, denote how regionalism is deep-seated in the study of  international relations. Even hitherto, regionalism proliferates, without question, in a number nobody could expect. That is why, taking a closer look at regionalism becomes extremely considerable in understanding how international relations works, today.

            As what the reviewer has stated above, the article focuses on the purport and significance of regionalism in the international affairs. Fawcett embarks the explanation on the discrepancy of three main terms in regionalism, namely region, regionalism itself, and regionalization. Both regionalism and regionalization, almost always, are used interchangeably, albeit the meaning of each term is dissimilar. In sum, in the words of Fawcett, regionalism amounts to the political ideology relating to or restricted to a particular regional space, while the term regionalization amounts to the whole proccess on how the actors of regionalism converge and incorporate in certain groups in particular regional space. Fawcett, at the same time, comprehensibly expounds who can be classified as the actors in regionalism, the historical backdrop of regionalism, the development of regionalism in post-Cold War era, and even the questions and expectancy that regionalism is facing in the world today, consecutively.

            What Fawcett attempts to reveal through the article is, perhaps, he is trying to give a comprehensive understanding in respect of the significance of regionalism. It can be seen through his in-order explanation regarding regionalism. Fawcett starts the article by giving an all-important concept, which is the defnition of three main terms in regionalism. It, therefore, becomes really significant since these concepts, almost always, are used in a wrong way. Moreover, in my opinion, Fawcett is trying to consider the concept of regionalism through different point of view and in the end, it indirectly influences the reader to look at regionalism through different perspective. His different approach can be seen best at last two subsections, namely the “problems and prospects” and “conclusions”. Through both subsections, Fawcett attempts to criticize the concept of regionalism by posing three major elements, which in turn, are adversative to regionalism. Those consecutive three elements are capacity, sovereignity, and hegemony. Firstly, Fawcett is questioning on how regionalism could run well if the capacity of regional groups in different regional space is dissimilar, for instance, ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) and EU (European Union). Unlike EU which consists of developed countries, ASEAN, on the other hands, is a regional group of developing ones. Secondly, Fawcett comes up with the idea of sovereignty — the term referred to the freedom of any country to govern themselves without other country’s intervention. Up to this concept, Fawcett is questioning how the sovereignty could deal with regional groups, considering regional groups are supposed to have the ability to govern its members to be in order, to follow the rules of it, which sometimes against its member’s national rules. Thirdly, Fawcett attempts to criticize the concept of regionalism with the concept of hegemon — the term referred to a phenomenon which a country being too dominant in one regional group. In the end, it shall make any particular regional group become the instrument of powerful country on behalf of her interest. Fawcett, then, is questioning on how regionalism can work well if it is haunted by the concept of hegemon, which jeopardized its aim to bring a better economics, politics, and social condition between countries in a particular regional space.

            With all due respect, Fawcett succeeds to deliver his ideas and analytical approaches to the readers well. In many references in regard to regionalism, a lot of writers simply does not take a closer look at the right definition of any term used in regionalism, in the end, it certainly brings the readers in what so-called missconception. Unlike other writers, Fawcett proposes a better way to understand regionalism deeply. However, the reviewer tends to say that Fawcett looks a bit pessimistic in his overview regarding regionalism. The article, hence, in my opinion, is being one-sided. The article focuses more on the questions and challenges of regionalism, while giving a few of positive sides of regionalism itself. At the end of the day, Fawcett’s writing is a good reading for international relations studies.

Duwi Riyadi Putra
International Relations

Universitas Indonesia

Source : Fawcett, Louise. (2011). Exploring Regional Domains : A Comparative History of Regionalism. International Affairs, 80(3), 429-446