GEOG220 Lecture13 - Regions and regionalism

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Transcript GEOG220 Lecture13 - Regions and regionalism

GEOG 220 – Geopolitics
What is a region?
• Regions are:
– “An area, especially part of a country or the world
having definable characteristics but not always fixed
boundaries” (OED)
– “An administrative district of a … country” (OED)
• Regions are political and historical rather
‘natural’, though physical dimensions often count
• Region as classification of space by government or
official agencies
• Region as spatial consciousness of individuals and
communities
• Region: “a medium and outcome of social
practices and relations of power that are
operative at multiple spatial and temporal
scales, among which the region might serve as
a kind of fix’ Dictionary of Human Geography
What is regionalism?
• Ideas and practices that conceive of politics,
economics, and identity in regional rather
than ‘national’ terms
– Trade organizations
– Defense
– Governance
Varieties of regionalism
• Scale:
– Sub-state or sub-national regions
– Supra-state or transnational / international regions
• Aims:
– Political project: the recognition or creation of a political identity
and governance
=> Regional autonomy
e.g. Kurdish Regional Government in Iraq
=> ‘sovereignty pooling’
e.g. European Union
– Economic project: economic integration
List two regions in the neighbourhood …
Regional political
movement: Cascadia
Regional Trade Agreement:
North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA)
Views on regionalism
‘Old regionalism’: seeking representation and
secession
 ‘New regionalism’: economic integration and
administrative functions
Supra-state regions
Why is regionalism growing?
• Incentives and pressures on the state from
above and from below
– Above: neoliberalism, economic globalization,
Trans National Corporations (TNCs), supra-state
institutions
– Below: sub-state nationalism
Examining regions and regionalism
• Regional geography: a scale of analysis drawing
from human and physical geography
=> “regional geography”
– Traditional disciplinary approach to dividing and
classifying the world
– Criticized as being mostly descriptive and
essentializing (through its emphasis of regional
‘uniqueness’)
• Geography of regionalism: analysis of
regionalization processes
• ‘The point of “doing” the region is
• not
‘The
point of
ultimately
to “doing”
divide thethe
world
into
regions
and rest
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It is
region
is
not
ultimately
rather[..] to engage in classifying
divide
the world
into regions
and
modelling
geographical
phenomena
so as to generate
and
rest
content.
It
is
rather[..]
questions about their variability and
to engagewith
in classifying
and
functioning
respect to other
phenomena’
modelling geographical
• ‘region as a medium and outcome
soand
as relations
to generate
ofphenomena
social practices
of
power
that are
operative
questions
about
theirmultiple
spatial and temporal scales, among
variability
andmight
functioning
which
the region
serve as a
kind
of respect
fix’
with
to other
• Entry on REGION, pp 630-632
phenomena’
• Entry on REGION, pp 630-632
Geographies of regions/regionalism
• Regional spaces: regional clustering of economic assets and
activities
=> Driven by competition over Foreign Direct Investments, and
adoption of model of Free Trade
• Spaces of regionalism: (re)assertion of political and cultural
distinctness => intermediary level for territorial
government
=> Driven by relative dissatisfaction with existing state
authorities
=> Combine to bring about ‘resurgent regionalization’
Concepts around regionalism
• New medievalism: divided and overlapping
authority
– Domains of competence move beyond the state
– Pluri-legalism: jurisdictional tensions
• Transborder regionalism:
– Formal and informal practices of transgressing
state borders
Why is regionalism difficult or limited?
• Political institutions are state-based
– Resistance by the state
– Limited options for departure from state institutions
• Regionalism not a panacea to problems of statecentered politics
– Reproduction of political tensions between the
governing and the governed
– Decentralization can aggravate factors in the quality of
institutions