Interregionalism and International Relations

2007 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 777-778 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edelgard Mahant

Interregionalism and International Relations, Heiner Hänggi, Ralf Roloff and Jürgen Rüland, eds., Routledge Advances in International Relations and Global Politics; London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 364.How do we explain a widespread international phenomenon that only occasionally contributes to the geo-strategic or economic interests of the participating states? This book is about interregionalism, the international organizations and institutions that link regional organizations from more than one region of the world (as, for example, ASEM, also known as Asia-Europe Meeting) or that span across more than one region, such as APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation) or FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas). The fact is that few of these institutions have accomplished much in concrete terms, yet they continue to proliferate, as the four-and-a-half page list of acronyms at the beginning of this volume amply demonstrates.

2021 ◽  
pp. 223386592110248
Author(s):  
Yooneui Kim ◽  
Youngwan Kim

Are international organizations autonomous actors in global politics? This paper investigates whether and how major powers influence the World Bank’s official development assistance policies. Despite the World Bank’s attempts to maintain independence from its member states, we argue that major powers are still influential. Testing this expectation with the data of official development assistance provisions between 1981 and 2017, we find that the World Bank provides a higher amount of official development assistance to the recipient countries that receive a higher amount of such assistance from the major powers such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan. In addition, the World Bank is prone to provide a higher amount of official development assistance to the recipients that have a similar preference to the major powers. This study sheds light on the relations between major powers and international organizations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lu Na-Xi ◽  
Huang Meng-Fang ◽  
Lu Shan-Bing

China and Russia issued a joint statement on 8 May 2015 outlining the main approaches to linking the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) projects. Both parties believe that to build the ‘Belt and Road’ project, it is necessary to use economic integration laws and actively enhance the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SOC) in stimulating regional economic cooperation, promoting construction of the SREB and linkage to and cooperation with the EAEU, creating a Free Trade Area (FTA) in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) and simultaneously begin creating a similar FTA among China, Russia and Central Asia to gradually stimulate interstate trade and promote regional economic development, actively developing—along with an improved model of energy cooperation—infrastructure and related industry and strengthening business contacts and jointly promoting construction of the SREB.


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tirta M. Mursitama ◽  
Haura E. Erwin

Since its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has been playing its greater role as a new giant economy more actively in international trade and has succeeded in strengthening its economic relations with its neighboring countries including Southeast Asian countries, which are the members of ASEAN. This paper particularly discusses China's economic policies in ASEAN after China gained its membership in the WTO. We focuses mainly on the agreement on trade in goods under the scheme of ASEAN China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and the investment agreement between China and ASEAN that affects its economic relations with ASEAN. We argue that China's economic policies in ASEAN as concrete and systematic implementation of "reform and opening up " policies initiated more than 30 years ago. Strategically, it has played one of the major and most important roles in strengthening its economic relations with ASEAN and that the state's role is the key to the success of China's economic policies in ASEAN.


2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (Special Edition) ◽  
pp. 111-133
Author(s):  
Irfan ul Haque Irfan ul Haque

This paper examines and critiques the worldwide mushrooming of preferential trading arrangements and traces its implications for Pakistan. It points out that this development is fundamentally contrary to the principle of most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment, which was the cornerstone of the post-war multilateral trading system as embodied in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The causes of the rise in bilateral and regional trading arrangements are discussed and it is shown that they pose a real threat to many relatively small economies, including Pakistan. The paper discusses the various preferential trade agreements Pakistan has already signed. It notes that, with the exception of its trade agreement with China, Pakistan has not succeeded in concluding preferential trading arrangements with any of the strategically and systemically more important countries, viz., the US, European Union, and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The South Asia Free Trade Area (SAFTA) could potentially be of considerable importance for Pakistan’s long-term economic growth, but this potential might not be realized if India and Pakistan fail to overcome their mutual differences. Finally, the paper explores steps that might be taken to promote Pakistan’s economic interests in its bilateral relations.


2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-81
Author(s):  
E. Arapova

During the 2014 APEC summit the participating countries agreed to move towards a region-wide economic integration and approved China-backed roadmap to promote the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP). The paper examines prospects for economic integration in the Asia-Pacific in the framework of 21 APEC participating members. It aims to measure the “integration potential” of the FTAAP on the basis of quantitative and qualitative analysis of the actual statistic data, to explore key obstacles hampering economic integration in the region. The research comes from the theory of convergence and concept of proximity. They suppose that the higher is the degree of homogeneity in economic development and regulatory regimes of the integrating countries the higher is their “integration potential”. The objective of the author’s analysis is to measure the “integration potential” of APEC countries in four directions: trade liberalization, free movement of investments, monetary and banking integration, free division of labor. Initial estimates of the FTAAP prospects base on the merchandize trade complementarity indices and coefficients of variation analysis. Besides, the research uses hierarchical cluster analysis that helps to classify countries in different groups according to similarity of their economic typologies. This methodology allows to reveal the favorable algorithm of regional economic integration in the framework of the “hybrid approach” (or “open regionalism” adopted for APEC countries in 1989) which encourages the countries to enter into free trade agreements on a bilateral basis or to make offers to the APEC membership as a whole. Final conclusions are based on the results of authors’ calculations with consideration for contemporary trends of the member countries’ economic development and long-term strategies of economic growth. Acknowledgements. The research was supported by the Russian Fund for Humanities, project no. 15-07-00026 “East Asian regionalism in the context of diversifi cation of economic growth model”.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document