Comparative Regionalism beyond Europe versus the Rest

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Authors

What is the current state of Comparative Regionalism (CR) as a field of research? Since its inception, CR has suffered from a chasm between those who take European integration as the model for conceptualising, theorising, comparing, and designing regionalism worldwide, and the critics, who reject EU-centrism in favour of more contextualised approaches focusing on the Global South. This paper challenges this characterisation by showing how CR has fundamentally changed in the last decade or so. We detail three 'silent' transformations: (i) conceptually, scholars disaggregate regionalism into specific components, rendering systematic comparison more tractable and less individual case-centric; (ii) theoretically, scholars develop frameworks that build on general social science theories and actively seek to move beyond EU-centrism; and (iii) methodologically, scholars use more rigorous comparative designs and a broader range of data. These changes, we suggest, indicate a 'mainstreaming' of CR, with attendant benefits and costs.

Original languageEnglish
JournalReview of International Studies
Number of pages17
ISSN0260-2105
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 26.02.2025

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British International Studies Association.

    Research areas

  • Politics - comparative regionalism, EU centrism, European Union, regional integration, Regional Organisation

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