BÖLGESEL ÖRGÜTLER

Regionalism “Political will to create a formal arrangement among states on a geographically restricted basis. Since its main participants are governments, it can be expressed as an artificial, top-down process.”

As it is the case with all the actors of global politics, regional organizations change according to the Zeitgeist (spirit of time) as well.

NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was established as a response to the European Union.

NAFTA member states are the USA, Canada and Mexico.

Old Regionalism: A type of regionalism in which states play the most important role. According to this approach, regions are considered to be fixed structures. In the old regionalism approach states are supposed to play the biggest role in the regional formations. It is the states, their leaders and their actions that determined the regional structures. Regions are considered to be fixed entities.

New Regionalism: According to this approach, Multiple actors, like states, business communities and non-governmental organizations play the fundamental role in the establishment of regions. Regions are considered as not fixed, but constructed entities.

Ernst Haas defines integration as follows: "distinct national settings are persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities toward a new and larger center, whose institutions possess or demand jurisdiction over the preexisting national states.”

Diffusion: Affect of an organization on institutional structure or decision making mechanism of another organization. 

Diffusion can be defined as the impact of an organization on other organizations. It can be through various actors and instruments. In order to be able to talk about diffusion, first of all, there must be a stimulus, an organization to be taken as a model. Second, there must be an issue or a problem. The actors involved would like to learn from the policies of the organization that they consider to be the stimulus.

Shallow versus institutional regionalism is another way of classifying different regionalisms. Shallow regionalism represents a kind of regionalism that is based on cooperation among states.

In the closed regionalism, regional organizations try to protect themselves from the competition stemming from outside. Founding actors try to protect their borders against the competition from third parties.

New regional organizations were established in order to cope with the political, economic and security challenges of the postwar era. NATO, Warsaw Pact and the European Coal and Steel Community can be considered as examples of these organizations.

Regionalism “Political will to create a formal arrangement among states on a geographically restricted basis. Since its main participants are governments, it can be expressed as an artificial, top-down process.”

There are different types of categorizations of regional organizations. First of all, they can be classified according to their aims. Why were they established? What were the aims of founders? Which functions do they try to fulfill? What does the founding charter/agreement state about the fundamental objectives of the organization? The second driver of regional economic organizations is the aim of protecting themselves from the economic competition of other regional blocs in a much better way.

A type of regionalism in which states play the most important role. According to this approach, regions are considered to be fixed structures.

Another important differentiation among regional organizations is related to their structure and their basic aims. Some of the regional organizations try to solve a collective action problem that can be of political, economic or security nature.

Mercosur

Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSEC) that was established in 1992.

Some regional organizations are established with limited aims by the founding actors. There can be different objectives of the founders. They might try to solve a security problem together or they might want to further their economic interests. Alternatively, they can also have cultural or political targets.

Ernst Haas, the father of neo-functionalism.

The concept of “security community” was developed by Karl Deutsch. (Deutsch, Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, 1957).