LESSON 5.

A WORLD OF REGIONS
Learning outcomes:
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
* Differentiate between regionalism and globalization;
* Explain how regions are formed and kept together;
* Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of regionalism; and
* Identify the factors leading to greater integration of the Asian region.

- Governments, associations, societies, and groups form regional organizations and networks as
a way of coping with the challenges of globalization.
- Globalization has made people aware of the world in general, but it has also made Filipinos
more aware of specific areas such as Southeast Asia.

Regionalism
- Is seen as a political and economic phenomenon.
- The term regionalism is actually encompassed a broader area. It can be examined in
relation to the following;
* Identities * Ecological sustainability; and
* Ethics, * Health
* Religion,
- It is a process and must be treated as an emergent, socially constituted phenomenon.
- It means that regions are not natural or given. Instead, they are constructed and
defined by policymakers, economic actors, and even social movements.

What is the most prominent regional organization here in Asia?

ASEAN - ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
- Founding Countries of ASEAN:
* Indonesia * Philippines * Thailand
* Malaysia * Singapore
- Established on August 8, 1967 in Bangkok Thailand
- The following countries joined ASEAN
* Brunei Darussalam on 7 January 1984;
* Vietnam on 28 July 1995;
* Lao PDR on 23 July 1997;
* Myanmar on 23 July 1997;
* Cambodia on 30 April 1999
Regionalization
- Is the growth of social integration within the region and often undirected processes of
social and economic interaction.
 - Refers to the regional concentration of economic flows (capital, goods and people)
within a specific geographical area.

Countries, Regions, and Globalization

- Mansfield and Milner state that economic and political definitions of the region vary.
But there are certain basic features that everyone can agree on:
First. Region are;
* a group of countries located in the same geographically area; or
* amalgamation of two regions; or
* a combination of more than two regions organized to regulate, and oversee
flows and policy choices.
Second. The words regionalization and regionalism should not be interchanged.

Regionalization
- Refers to the regional concentration of economic flows (capital, goods and people)
within a specific geographical area.
- it develops from the bottom up through societally driven processes coming from
markets, private trade, and investment flows, none of which is strictly
controlled by governments (bottom-up process).
- Growth of societal integration within the region and to the often-undirected processes
of social and economic interaction.

Regionalism
- Refers to a political process characterized by economic policy cooperation and
coordination among countries.
- Political will to create a formal arrangement among states on a geographically
restricted basis (top-down process).

Countries respond economically and politically to globalization in various ways.

* China - Offers its cheap and huge workforce to attract foreign businesses and
expand trade.
* US and Japan - Expand trade with countries it once considered its enemies but now
sees as markets for its good.
* Singapore and Switzerland - Compensate for their lack of resources by turning
themselves into financial and banking hubs.
* Singapore developed its harbor facilities and made them a first-class transit port for
ships carrying different commodities from Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and
mainland Southeast Asia to countries in the Asia-Pacific.
Countries form a regional association for several reasons.
1. For military defense
- The most widely known defense grouping is the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization) which was formed during the cold war when several
Western European countries plus the United States agreed to protect
Europe against the threat of the Soviet Union.
- The Soviet Union responded by creating its regional alliance, the Warsaw Pact,
consisting of Eastern European countries under Soviet domination. The
Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991, but NATO remains in place.

2. Form regional organizations to pool their resources

- This will get better results for their exports as well as expand their leverage
against trading partners.
- The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was established
in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to regulate the
production and sale of oil.

3. To form regional blocks to protect their independence from the pressure of

superpower politics
- The presidents of Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia created the
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to pursue:
* World peace and international cooperation;
* Human rights;
* National sovereignty;
* Racial and national equality;
* Non-intervention;
* Peaceful conflict resolution
- Non-aligned because the Association refuses to side with either the First World
Capitalist democracies in Western Europe and North America or the
communist states in Eastern Europe.
- It has 120 member countries.
- The movement was never formalized and continues to exist up to the present.

4. Economic crisis compels countries to come together

-When the Thai economy collapsed in 1996 after foreign currency speculators
and troubled international banks demanded that the Thai government
pay back its loan.
- A rapid withdrawal of foreign investments bankrupted the economy.
 - This crisis began to spread to other Asian countries as their currencies were
also devalued, and foreign investments left in a hurry.
- ASEAN countries, along with China, Japan, and South Korea, agreed to establish
an emergency fund to anticipate a crisis that the Asian economies
stabilized.
- The crisis made ASEAN more unified and coordinated.
- The Association has come a long way since it was formed as a coalition
(alliance) of countries that were pro-American and supportive of the US
intervention in Vietnam.

Communities also engage in regional organizing in the name of a single cause.

Non-State Regionalism
- They rely on the power of individuals, non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
and associations to link up with one another in pursuit of a particular goal.
- New regionalism varies informs:
* Tiny associations that include more than a few actors and focus on a single
issue; or
* Huge continental unions that address a multitude of common problems from
territorial defense to food security.
- New Regionalism - Is identified with reformists who share the same
* Values;
* Norms;
* Institutions, and
* System
that exist outside of the traditional, established mainstream institutions
and systems.
- Some organizations partner with governments to initiate social change. Those
who work with governments (legitimizers) participate in “institutional
mechanisms that afford some civil society groups voice and influence in
technocratic policy-making processes.”
- Example: The ASEAN issued its Human Rights Declaration in 2009. Aware that
democratic rights are limited in many ASEAN countries (regional body left
it to member countries to apply the principles as they see fit).
. . . “New Regionalism (NGO)” organizations used this official declaration
to pressure governments to pass laws and regulations that protect and
promote Human rights.
 - South America (left-wing governments) support the:
Hemispheric Social Alliance’s opposition to the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA).
- Members of the Roundtable of National Associations and Networks and NGOs in
Latin America and the Caribbean participate in:
* Forum
* Summits
* Dialogues with Presidents and Ministers
- Citizen Diplomacy Forums - a group tries to influence the policies and program of the
Organization of American States.

- ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) was in part the result of NGOs and
civil society groups pushing the following:
* Prevent discrimination;
* Uphold political freedom; and
* Promote democracy and human rights throughout the region.
- Other regional organizations dedicate themselves to specialized causes:
Rainforest Foundation (Brazil, Guyana, Panama, and Peru)
- Protect indigenous peoples and the rainforests
Regional Interfaith Youth Networks (young Christians across Asia, Africa, Middle
East, America, and Caribbean)
- Promote “conflict prevention, resolution, peace, education and sustainable
development.”
- Migrant Forum in Asia (another regional network of NGOs and trade Union)
- Committed to protecting and promoting the rights and welfare of
migrant workers.
- Those organizations’ primary power relies on their moral standing and their
ability to combine lobbying with pressure politics.
- Disadvantage of non-state organization
- Most of them are poorly financed (unlike with their large state counterpart);
their impact in global politics is, therefore limited.

New regionalism differs significantly from traditional state-to-state regionalism when it comes
to identifying problems.
- New regionalism advocates such as the NGO Global Forum see these issues as
reflections of flawed economic development and environmental models.
- By flawed, they mean economic development plans that are market-based, profit-
driven, and hardly concerned with social welfare, especially among the poor.
 - Another challenge for new regionalists is the discord that may emerge among them.

Asian Regionalism is a new concept among continental communities.

- New to cooperation and collaboration goals, it has the 50-year-old ASEAN group.
- The Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) community is comprised of
3 pillars:
* Political-security community it gives importance to human rights, drugs,
foreign relations, defense, law, and transnational crimes.
* Economic community adheres to significant roles of monitoring:
- Economic ministers - Finance ministers
- Central bank governors - Free trade area
- Investment area - Agriculture and forestry
- Transport ministers - Science and technology
- Energy - Mineral
- Tourism - Free trade agreements
- Sectoral bodies in the arena of an economic community
- Telecommunication and information technology ministers
* Socio-cultural community - there is an avenue for cooperation among
the minsters responsible for:
-Culture and arts - Sports
- Disaster management - Education
- Environment - Health
- Information - Labor
- Rural development - Poverty eradication
- Women - Youth
- Civil service matters

Another challenge for new regionalists is the discord that may emerge among them.
Example disagreement surface over issues like:
* Gender and religion (pro-choice NGOs breaking from religious civil society groups (run
by lay) that side with the Church).
* Muslim imams, or governments opposed to reproductive rights and other pro-women
policies.
Moreover;
* While civil society groups are able to dialogue with governments, the latter may not
be welcoming to this new trend and set up one obstacle after another.
IOM, Migrant Forum Asia Partner to Promote the Rights of Migrant Workers in International
Supply Chains.
Migrant Forum Asia and its ally, the
* Coordination of Action Research on AIDS (CARAM) lobbied ASEAN governments to
defend migrant labor rights.
* Their program of action, however, slowed down once countries like Malaysia,
Singapore, and Thailand refused to recognize the rights of undocumented
migrant workers and the rights of the families of migrants.

What is the difference between state-to-state regionalism and non-state regionalism?

Contemporary Challenges to Regionalism

* Resurgence of military nationalism and populism
- (the refusal of NATO after collapse of the Soviet Union); Trump criticized the
organization as simply leeching off American Military power without
giving anything in return.
* Continuing financial crisis of the region
- is forcing countries like Greece to consider leaving the Union to gain more
flexibility in their economic policy.
* Anti-Immigrant sentiment and a populist campaign
- against Europe have already led to the United Kingdom voting to leave the
European Union in a move the media has termed the Brexit (British Exit).
* ASEAN members continue to disagree over the extent to which member countries
should sacrifice their sovereignty for the sake of regional stability.
- ASEAN countries also disagreed over how to relate to China, with the
Philippines unable to get the other countries to support its condemnation
of China’s occupation of the West Philippines Sea.
- Cambodia and Laos led the opposition favoring diplomacy over confrontation,
but the real reason was the dramatic increase of Chinese investments
and economic aid to these countries.
* More open attitude to the formerly authoritarian countries as civil society groups in
Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand demanded that the other countries
democratized adopts a more open attitude towards foreign criticism.

Final Challenge
* Western Government - may see regional organizations not simply as economic
formations but also as instruments of political democratization.
 * Non-Western Government and developing societies, may have a different view
regarding globalization, development, and democracy.
- Singapore, China, and Russia see democracy as an obstacle to the
implementation and deepening of economic globalization because
constant public inquiry about economic projects and lengthy debate
slows down implementation or leads to unclear outcomes.
- Democracy's tedious procedures must, therefore, give way to efficiency.

Conclusion
- Official regional associations are now widespread all over the world.
- The population of the countries that joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Council (APEC)
alone comprised 37% of the world's population in 2007.
- These countries are also part of "smaller" organizations that include the following:
* Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
* Shanghai Cooperation Organization
* North American Free Trade Agreement
* Caribbean and Pacific Group of States
* Union of South American Nations
* North Korea is part of the Regional Forum, which discusses security issues in
the region.
- In the same way, the countries will find it difficult to reject all forms of global economic
integration, it will also be hard for them to turn their backs on their regions.
*Even if the UK leaves the EU, it must continue to trade with its immediate
neighbors and will, therefore be forced to implement many EU rules.
- None of this is to say that regional organizations will remain unaltered.
- The history regionalism shows that regional associations emerge as new global
concerns arise.
- The future of regionalism will depend on the immense changes in global politics that
will emerge in the 21st century.

ASEAN Aims and Purposes

- To accelerate the economic growth, social progress, and cultural development in the
region through joint endeavors in the spirit of equality and partnership in order
to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of
Southeast Asian Nations;
- To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the
rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to
the principles of the United Nations Charter;
- To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest
in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific, and administrative fields;
- To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the
educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres;
- To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilization of their agriculture and
industries, the expansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of
international commodity trade, the improvement of their transportation and
communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples;
- To promote Southeast Asian studies; and
- To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regional
organizations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even
closer cooperation among themselves.