Regional Integration - Science topic

The issue of interdependence of formal and informal integration and it’s grassroots correlates with the two type of borders coexisting in the global economy: administrative (state) and economic ones. Just one and the same global geoeconomic space evolves the set of interconnected national economies which are marked by clear political boundaries and a lot of trans-border (supra-national) internationalized production cores enclosed in fuzzy economic boundaries so that these cores can change (and do so) their scale and configuration in global space permanently. The central core may be formed by a global firm’s key economic activities and upper upstream functions and hence all other functions, different value chains’ links, affiliates and local value-generating effects depicture the peripheral areas within the economic boundaries of these cores.

No less important is the question of how the cohesion between formal and informal integration is achieved? We consider this cohesion to become a multi-dimensional process embracing (1) geographic dimension – that means common / conjugate border, industrial clusters that shape a single delineated business territory; (2) organizational dimension - externalization of individual production processes of companies, segmenting entire GVCs into separate units linked with each other by production cooperation, establishing of affiliates and subcontracting - thus crossing the administrative borders of the countries; (3) value-generating dimension – the enlarging intermediates’ exports within FTA economic space.

Peter F. Colwell Dear professor, your are right. A definition of industrial district is essential. This session would be a sort of starting point for the discussion. For this reason, it focuses on two pillars, the first is precisely methodological and wants to investigate the methods for the definition of districts. The second is structural because it wants to investigate the resilience of post-economic crisis districts. Thanks for your suggestions, they are very useful.

Greetings, regarding ethnic conflict theories, you may also refer to:

Theories of Nationalism by Umut Ozkirimli. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.  

Ethnic Conflict: A Systematic Approach to Cases of Conflict by Neal G. Jesse and Kristen P. Willilams. Washington: CQ Press, 2011.

Modern Hatreds: The Symbolic Politics of Ethnic War by Stuart J. Kaufman Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

You will find this book also useful:

Trade Regionalism in the Asia-Pacific: Developments and Future Challenges

Sanchita Basu Das, Masahiro Kawai, editors

Date of publication: 2016

Publisher: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute

Number of pages: 359

Take a look at my ResearchGate profile. I have two articles posted that may help you.

Frank,

you might want to look at the presentations of the 6th Annual Conference of the NATO Maritime Interdiction Operational Training Center: http://www.nmiotc.nato.int/#transformation/AnnualConference/annual_conference_2015_lectures_list_en.htm. In particular the presentations of the 2nd day focus on different legal aspects.

In addition, the following pieces could be of interest:

Bassam Fattouh and Laura El-Katiri, Lebanon: The Next Eastern Med Gas Producer?, GMF Policy Paper, 2015, http://www.gmfus.org/publications/lebanon-next-eastern-mediterranean-gas-producer

Mesut Hakki Casin, "A New Geopolitical Game in the Mediterranean Hydrocarbons: Windows of Opportunities or New Challenges?", Journal of Caspian Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 (2015), http://dergipark.ulakbim.gov.tr/jocaffairs/article/view/5000130650

Sami Andoura and David Korany (eds.) Energy in the Eastern Med: Promise or Peril?, Egmont Paper 65, 2014, http://www.egmontinstitute.be/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ep65.pdf

Sohbet Karbuz, "The Underbelly of Eastern Med Gas", Journal of Energy Security, August 2013, http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=445:the-under-belly-of-eastern-mediterranean-gas&catid=137:issue-content&Itemid=422

Hakim Darbouche et al, East Med Gas: what kind of a game-changer? Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, 2012, http://www.oxfordenergy.org/2012/12/east-mediterranean-gas-what-kind-of-a-game-changer/

Try UNHCR's RefWorld database and cross reference for "reintegration" which is one of their durable solutions.  You should find reports on how it has and has not worked in regional and ethnic conflicts around the world.

I believe you seem focusing on economic integration not political. ASEAN is a economic grouping. Political integration such as European Council is very hard to achieve in South-East Asia. The reason is that there are many big powers involved in the dynamics of Asia. The states of Asia are having differing views as they would like to have relations with all the big powers such as the US, China, Russia, Japan and, India for safeguarding their national interests. National sentiments always strive to strengthen their national identity.

Cultural identities are fixed and states strive to strengthen them. On  the contrary, States are constantly struggling to increase theirs' economic power so, they struggle for economic regionalism or integration which gradually brings about change in political identity or culture of states those trying for economic groupings.

it is one of the central and most discussed issues in CR domain. it relates to all social conflicts but naily ethno-national conflicts known as PSC - Protracted Social Conflicts or Intractable Conflicts.

i recommend to begin reading Edward Azar, Nadim Rouhana, Daniel Bar-Tal who wrote a lot about this bias. 

impact of ethnic conflicts on regional integration process

there is a literature in economics showing simply being near the coast matters.    and the curse of oil if the subnational is resource rich too.  finally, if the subnational was at one time independent can matter - ex. Texas in the u.s. was its own country briefly

Thanks so much Monica for recommendation! I think Bulmer-Thomas work is very good but I'm also looking for works that analyze current regionalism and the regional integration focus on central american case. If know any other work please let me know.

You may be interested in the enclosed paper

There is a long history of the study of interdependence between transport and development. On the one hand transport points with initial favorable advantages can be drivers of growing economic activity. The development of the system after that is likely to be guided by the goal of linking the areas with the greatest development. (See Taaffe/Morrill/Gould for an idealized typical sequence of development.) I have thought a good deal about this problem and there are more nuanced and elaborate ideas at the heart of your question. On the other hand, a lot of this thinking has a bias towards growth and "more is better." This idea is not without its problematic aspects.

Building a transport corridor and expecting that development will automatically follow is probably not going to be the way it works. Much more likely is that the transport corridor linking places CAN possibly become the nexus of a set of advantages in terms of accessibility that will lead to further positive feedback (also known as “circular and cumulative causation”). One of my favorite versions of this is the work of Friedman and in some ways Hirschman where the complex concepts of spread and back wash and spillovers point to the idea that a transport advantage can lead to more positive effects (in terms of further locations and clusters). Now, one of the surest ways to have a growth corridor is to have a link that connects large nodes which themselves are active points of production and consumption. Friedman I think coined the idea that growth is focused on corridors linking places that are a highly interactive. In some ways the push into the ex-urbs beyond the circumferential highways that ring US cities occur along roads leading to other centers. One can also see the effect of attempting to “bundle” and market regional economic access as an asset as in say the areas of North and South Carolina in the US.

I am leaving aside for others the more critical issue of whether a corridor with concentrated growth and development can actually have some negative consequences for the indigenous forms of crop production and economic land use in developing regions.

Thanks for the provocative question, and I look forward to other replies

Perhaps I should more fully explain my previous answer. I am new to this forum and do not yet have a feel for the level of detail that is helpful to members. In bacterial phylogenetics, the existence of horizontal genetic transfer (HGT) presents some unique challenges that are not often considered when doing phylogenies of higher eukaryotes.

So the question involved a cluster of genes found on a plasmid (by definition a horizontally mobile element), and a homologous gene cluster found in the chromosome of another species. Both gene clusters are reported to have flanking insertion sequences, which is very strongly associated with HGT. So the most likely scenario is that the gene cluster has transferred to both lineages. It is also most likely that they are not linearly descended, but rather share a common ancestor. So the question is then, which of the two is closest to the common ancestor? Since they are horizontally mobile, the phylogenic relationship of the other genes in the host genomes is irrelevant to the ancestry of the gene clusters. Their location on the plasmid or the chromosome will impact their mobility, but isn’t informative as to ancestry. Even the function of the genes will not, in most cases, be helpful. If you only have the two gene clusters, this is a classic “chicken and egg” question, and the answer is indeterminable.

If you are able to find other homologous gene clusters using a BLAST search, then you might be able to make an alignment and create a phylogenetic tree. (You should first check your sequences for evidence of recombination, common with mobile elements, but which violates the inherent assumptions in most tree building algorithms.) If you do build a tree, it will be unrooted, and only tell you which sequences are more closely related to each other. In order to root the tree and determine ancestry, you will need to declare one sequence as an outgroup, (essentially declare one sequence as the most ancestral). This is notoriously difficult with many mobile genetic elements, and has a profound effect on the topology of the tree and subsequent inferences about ancestry.

Thanks Laurent for your kind suggestion. I will have a look!

Dear James, Thanks for sharing constructive insight on constraint in implementation of single currency in EU. It sounds challenging for fostering effective management of single currency as development disparity among member countries might partly affect the ultimate goal.

The impact of globalization was perhaps the defining characteristic of most literature in IR/IPE regionalism between 1995-2005. Björn Hettne and other so called new regionalism scholars (as well as more orthodox scholar) wrote in depth about the relationship. Much less is written about Foreign Policy Coordination in the specific sense, compared to globalization and regionalism(regional integration in IPE and IR.

The book edited by Philippe De Lombaerde et al mentioned on ResearchGate (entitled Regionalisation and Global Governance. The Taming of Globalisation?) is basically about this relationship. I and Hettne contributed one chapter where we state that globalisation and regionalism are often treated in a grossly simplified way, especially in the sense that regionalism is often seen as either an integral part of economic globalisation (a stepping stone) or as a political instrument to resist economic globalisation (a stumbling block). It is not until we transcend such simplified conceptualisations that we will be able to better understand the complex and multifold relationships between globalisation and regionalism. Our chapter underlines the political dimension in the nexus and that regionalism may include astrong political dimension that may tame globalization.

UNESCO did some public opion surveys on regional integration in West Africa. You may want to query the UNESCO office in Ghana which conducted the research. They wanted to extend these surveys to the rest of Africa but didnt make it. The Society for International Development (SID) in Kenya has done some work, including surveys in East Africa