Overview

Drawing on a wealth of research on regionalism, this book offers a new insight into the role of regional entities as key building blocks of international society after the end of the Cold War. Exploring the dynamic nature of regional relations, the author defines several categories of regions with different forms of cohesion and integration: the EU’s top-down model led by visionaries and governments; East Asia’s bottom-up approach centred on supply chains rather than institutions; regions limited to only free trade; and, finally, regions without a sense of regionalism – such as the Middle East. Though the analysis concentrates on the broader Eurasian landmass, it can be applied to all regions and regional integration entities. Challenging notions such as the preponderance of certain forms of regional integration, and investigating the causes and challenges of clashes between different regional integration projects (as in Ukraine), this book concludes with a re-definition of some general principles of regional cooperation and integration. Students of international relations, researchers of regional cooperation and integration from a political science or economic point of view, historians in general, and scholars of international relations theory can all benefit from the insights in this book. The views expressed in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. This book offers a clear framework for understanding regionalism. It is essential reading for those seeking insight into the future of international cooperation.                                                                                                                              Ivan Krastev           Chairman, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow, Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna   This book by Mario Apostolov explores the contemporary variants of regionalism in Europe and Asia. From hopeful beginnings in the immediate post-Cold War aftermath, each region has become more complex today. From top-down European institutions to bottom-up Asian cooperation, regionalism has become a formidable, but much neglected, force in today’s world.  André Liebich Honorary Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Switzerland  

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9783032136602

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Mario Apostolov is Regional Adviser at the Economic Cooperation and Trade Division of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) working on trade facilitation and development and the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia. He holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies at the University of Geneva. He has been teaching a course on the Dynamics of Regional Cooperation and Diplomacy at the International Institute in Geneva for 16 years. He has previous degrees and has worked as a visiting scholar at the UN University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) in Bruges, Belgium, the Institute on Social Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen), in Vienna, Austria, Columbia University in New York, USA, and the State Institute of International Relations in Moscow, Russia. His publications cover such diverse areas as regional integration, trade facilitation, and the geopolitics of Christian-Muslim relations. His book The Christian-Muslim Frontier: A Zone of Contact, Conflict or Co-operation (Routledge 2004), is used as a reference on this subject.

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