TY - JOUR

T1 - Does Regionalism Diffuse? A New Research Agenda for the Study of Regional Organizations

AU - Jetschke, Anja

AU - Lenz, Tobias

PY - 2013/4/1

Y1 - 2013/4/1

N2 - In the post-World War Two era, regional organizations have proliferated. The accompanying literature focuses on analysing the drivers and effects of regionalism, but has, to date, largely neglected a series of puzzling macro-phenomena: the marked spatial and temporal clustering of regional organizations, as well as similarities in their institutional design. This contribution argues that the existing approaches analyse regional organizations primarily as independent phenomena, whose genesis and design are seen as being determined either by dynamics internal to the region itself or by external forces such as powerful hegemons and globalizing pressures. Against this background, this research note argues for the broadening of existing analytical perspectives and sketches a diffusion-oriented research agenda that instead conceives of regional organizations as being interdependent.

AB - In the post-World War Two era, regional organizations have proliferated. The accompanying literature focuses on analysing the drivers and effects of regionalism, but has, to date, largely neglected a series of puzzling macro-phenomena: the marked spatial and temporal clustering of regional organizations, as well as similarities in their institutional design. This contribution argues that the existing approaches analyse regional organizations primarily as independent phenomena, whose genesis and design are seen as being determined either by dynamics internal to the region itself or by external forces such as powerful hegemons and globalizing pressures. Against this background, this research note argues for the broadening of existing analytical perspectives and sketches a diffusion-oriented research agenda that instead conceives of regional organizations as being interdependent.

KW - Comparative regionalism

KW - diffusion

KW - EU as a model

KW - institutional design

KW - regional integration

KW - regional organization

KW - Politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84876055939&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/13501763.2012.762186

DO - 10.1080/13501763.2012.762186

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:84876055939

VL - 20

SP - 626

EP - 637

JO - Journal of European Public Policy

JF - Journal of European Public Policy

SN - 1350-1763

IS - 4

ER -