REGIONAL INTEGRATION: MAJOR CONCEPTS

REGIONAL INTEGRATION: MAJOR CONCEPTS


While the globalization experience of the world has been evolving, on the other side,
nation states have been searching for the opportunities that would preserve their national
interests. Membership in regional economic integration is regarded as one of such
opportunities. Hence, regional economic integration is conceived as a way to gain
privileged situation within the specified boundaries. As it will be studied in the following
chapters, while preferential trade relations were mainly characterized by the colonial trade
links in the first wave of globalization, arrangements existing in the the second wave of
globalization have been supplemented by the legal environment of GATT/WTO system. In
this chapter, the basic concepts related to regional economic integration will be presented.
These concepts include the definition of regional integration, types of the regional
integration agreements (RIAs) and the structure of RIAs.

2.1 Definition of Regional Integration

What regional integration or regionalism means in economic sense should be the starting
point for understanding the overall concept of RIAs. In its dictionary meaning, regionalism
can be defined as a foreign economic policy that defines the national interests of a country
in terms of particular geographic areas. On the other hand, the WTO defines regionalism as
actions by governments to liberalize or facilitate  trade on a regional basis, sometimes
through free trade areas or custom unions.

Before to study types of regional integration, remark on the concepts of regionalism and
regionalization would be beneficial. Such remark will help further to clarify the meaning of
regionalism. While regionalization is a process mainly driven by market forces of trade and
investment flows, regionalism derives from state led policies of cooperation and
intergovernmental treaties (Gavin & van Langenhove, 2003, p.280). Differently, Ravenhill
(2005, p.117) distinguishes regionalism as a formal process of intergovernmental   9
cooperation between two or more countries, and regionalization as the growth of economic
interdependence within the specified geographical area.