ULUSLARARASI POLİTİKA

Economic integration aims to achieve greater economic prosperity founded on regional economic integration and sustainability and the equitable distribution of benefits and costs.

A region is often defined as a group of countries located in the same geographically specified area. A region is basically “a part of the land surface of the earth”. In the geographical literature, regions can be defined in three ways as uniform, functional, and administrative areas, respectively.

While the term of region has been typically defined “as geographically proximate and interdependent states” and the term of regionalism “as attempts at formal cooperation between such states”, it is evident that for many scholars who study on the subject of region and regionalism “these definitions are today too narrow”. The resurrection and re-definition of ‘regionalism’ are among the prominent trends in the international studies of the present times. Regionalism has been brought back into the academic studies as well as the policy debates after some decades of neglect.

Regional cooperation is formed to achieve an effective and strengthened voice in protecting and sustainably harnessing the region’s physical, social and cultural assets for the benefit of all. It is formed by developing and committing to coordinated regional or sub-regional policies and strategies. It requires voluntary agreement to modes of regional cooperation; services are mainly funded and delivered nationally.

Regionalism is closely linked with the shifting nature of international politics and intensification of globalisation. Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

Regional Security Organizations are North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), European Union (EU), Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), African Union (AU), League of Arab States (AL), The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Council of Europe is among the regional political organizations.

NATO’s purpose is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means, and in security. NATO politically promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to build trust, solve problems, and prevent conflict in the long run. NATO militarily is committed to a peaceful resolution of disputes in international relations.

European Union, as a political regional organization, is set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours in Europe, which culminated in the Second World War. The six founding countries are Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. The EU is not only faced with the dilemma of how to take care of them, but also finds itself the target of several terrorist attacks work for the settlement of conflicts and disputes involving Member States.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect in 1994, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones and laying the foundations for strong economic growth and rising prosperity for the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Since then, NAFTA has demonstrated how free trade increases wealth and competitiveness, delivering real benefits to workers, families, farmers, manufacturers, and consumers.

For Camroux, regionalisation can be defined as akin to “nation-building”, and “regionalism” can be defined as a process of “identity” construction akin to “nationalism”.

For Camroux, regionalisation can be defined as akin to “nation-building”, and “regionalism” can be defined as a process of “identity” construction akin to “nationalism”.

The early debate on regionalism in the 1960s and 1970s was always focused on the European integration process.

For Lombaerde, neofunctionalism came under critique by intergovermentalism.

According to the regionalism perspective, some of the most fruitful writing in the discipline of International Relations comes from the constructivist school that puts a particular focus on the processes of identity formation and learning (Wendt, 1994: 384-396).

According to this definition by Brown (2007), “federalism is a system of government in which authority is constitutionally divided between central and regional governments. Many experts who study federalism see regionalism expressed in direct, political, geographically-specific ways before it can potentially take on constitutional significance. This is true at subnational, supranational and trans-national levels alike (Brown, 2007: 13, 14).

Some of the most important dimensions of regionalism can be stated as security, economic, social, and environmental (Söderbaum and Granit, 2014: 18-19).

Regional integration provides the environment for the development of new regionalism. In other words, new regionalism is an outcome of regional integration (Obydenkova, 2006: 2, 13).

According to Nishikimi, economic integration constitutes two different forces on industrial location: dispersion and agglomeration forces.

The idea of APEC was firstly publicly broached by Bob Hawke -Former Prime Minister of Australia- during a speech in Korea on 31 January 1989. Ten months later, 12 Asia-Pacific economies met in Canberra (Australia) to establish APEC. The founding members were Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and the United States.

First of all; while region refers to a defined and clear area in one geographic space where boundaries are lined; with reference to Frost, regionalism expresses a political movement which is based on awareness of and loyalty to a region, combined with dedication to a region-wide agenda of some kind in the second phase. The suffix (“-ism”) in the word of regionalism suggests a conscious set of related ideas or ideology that is capable of forming the basis of a political movement or an intellectual trend. It implies a coordinated action on the part of governments based on some vision or set of ideas (Frost, 2008: 15). Thirdly; regionalization can be defined as the formation or realignment of transactions and attitudes along regional lines. It is in some way “a manifestation of globalization”. According to Frost, “regionalization is driven, brokered, and carried out primarily by private individuals acting on their own. Real-life integration requires people-employees of multinational corporations, small-scale traders, representatives of civil society organizations, and many others”.