CIAO DATE: 09/04

International Affairs

May 2004

• Exploring Regional Domains: A Comparative History of Regionalism  Louise Fawcett

  This article offers an overview of the history and development of regionalism with a view to providing a framework for thinking about its progress and prospects in different parts of the world. After a preliminary discussion of the problems encountered in defining regions and regionalism, the article moves to a historical and comparative analysis, ranging widely to include examples from many different regions. It argues that regionalism should be understood as an evolutionary and cumulative process, which has grown and expanded to take in new tasks and new domains. It has become an increasingly important component of the different structures of global governance, and one whose potential neither states, multilateral institutions, nor non-state actors can afford to ignore.

• The United States and Regionalism in Central Asia S. Neil Macfarlane

  This article examines the record of American policy towards regional cooperation in Central Asia. It begins with the determinants of regionalism and the role of external states therein. It then considers the nature of American interests in Central Asia. This is followed by a historical account of the three stages of American policy towards the region. The article argues that regional cooperation has not been a significant aspect of US policy. Instead US policy-makers have preferred bilateral relations or multilateral structures (e.g. the Partnership for Peace, the GUUAM [Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova] group) which draw the region's states beyond its boundaries. US policy tends to reduce incentives for regional actors to develop multilateral cooperation. It may also encourage competitive regionalist agendas on the part of other interested major powers (Russia and China).

• Regionalism, Regional Structures and Security Management in Central Asia  Roy Allison

  The security dimension of regionalism and regional structures in Central Asia and Azerbaijan has been limited by Russia's influence as a regional hegemon, aswell as by various other constraints specific to the region and the local states. Moreover, as a peripheral zone in the world system, Central Eurasia has not shown much evidence of regionalization as a process. But in response to the proximity of hegemonic power the smaller states have tried to adopt bandwagoning and balancing strategies in regional formats. Although their fixation on 'regime security' has encouraged them to accommodate Russia through CIS structures, this is changing as new bilateral security relationships develop with the United States. The Russian-sponsored Collective Security Treaty Organization is unable to address the most serious challenges for regional security management in Central Asia. Yet the local states have been unable on their own to establish a regional security consensus and to institutionalize cooperation on that basis. The diffuse GUUAM grouping (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova) has not offered a basis for selfsustaining regional security cooperation. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization has created a venue to engage China in the security dialogue on Central Asia, particularly over counterterrorism, but has otherwise failed to tackle security challenges among and within the Central Asian states. Overall, the current focus of these states and their sponsors on bilateral relations to provide security assistance continues to displace security-related regionalism.

• Regionalism in Central Asia: New Geopolitics, Old Regional Order  Annette Bohr

  Behind the rhetoric of regional cooperation, the Central Asian states have been embroiled with increasing frequency in conflicts among themselves, including trade wars, border disputes and disagreements over the management and use of water and energy resources. Far from engendering a new regional order in Central Asia, the events of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent basing of US troops in the region have served to entrench pre-existing patterns of regional cooperation, while highlighting the obstacles that have beset the regionalization process there since the mid-1990s. While all five Central Asian states have been attempting to use the renewed rivalry between Russia and the United States, which is being played out in the Central Asian region, to maximize their strategic and economic benefits, the formation of the United States-Uzbekistan strategic partnership has increased the resolve of the other Central Asian states (Turkmenistan excepted) to balance Uzbekistan's preponderance by enthusiastically pursuing regional projects involving Russia and, to a lesser extent, China. This regional dynamic has resulted in the steady gravitation of the centre of regionalism in Central Asia to the north from a nominal Tashkent-Astana axis to a more stable Astana-Moscow one, with possible repercussions for the poorer states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The article examines the major constraints on regionalism in Central Asia, considering in particular the ways in which the personalist, non-democratic regimes of Central Asia have obstructed state-centric 'top-down' regionalism as well as informal regionalist processes 'from below'.

• Regionalism, Iran and Central Asia  Edmund Herzig

  A combination of revolutionary ideology, trouble with neighbours and location in the Middle East, where regionalism is moribund, make the Islamic Republic of Iran an unlikely enthusiast for regional coalition-building. The impetus towards regionalism derives first and foremost from geopolitical considerations-the need to counter the US government's efforts to isolate Iran-but also from domestic dynamics; the regionalist discourse has lent an acceptable ideological colouring to an increasingly pragmatic foreign policy.

  Iran's neighbours, however, share neither its geopolitical predicament nor its ideological complexion, and the actual implementation of Tehran's regionalist agenda has been based on functional cooperation, rather than on geopolitics and ideology. Trade promotion and the development of transport infrastructure to link Central Asia and the Caspian to Turkey and the Persian Gulf have been the most appealing areas for northern neighbours, and dominate the agenda of the Economic Cooperation Organization, Iran's main vehicle for multilateral cooperaton with Central Asia and Azerbaijan. Tehran's 1992 proposal for a Caspian Sea Cooperation Organization has so far been stymied by the littoral states' well-publicized disagreements over the sea's legal status, though their numerous multilateral meetings and handful of agreements suggest that the idea has potential in the medium-term.

  Notwithstanding the meagre tangible results to date, Iran's tilt towards regionalism has had a positive impact. It has helped to rehabilitate the Islamic Republic in the eyes of its neighbours, contributed to the evolution of policy debate at home and prepared the ground for future multilateral cooperation.

• Back to the Future? Regionalism in South-East Asia Under Unilateral Pressure  Joakim Öjendal

  This article assesses the prospects for regionalization in South-East Asia. It takes as its point of departure the contradiction between a regionalized and a unilateral world order as typically pursued by the EU and US respectively. It acknowledges the commonly accepted thesis that since September 11, 2001, the US has increasingly exercised a unilateral world order and that this poses a challenge to global regionalization. South-East Asia, a conflict-ridden, previously 'peripheral', region with a'successful' regionalization has been depicted as a 'second front' in the war against terrorism and is thus eligible for considerable US pressure. In this context, the 'ASEAN way', commonly benignly viewed, has been criticized for being shallow, 'allowing' terrorism to operate regionally. However, since 2001, and especially after the Bali bombings in 2003, ASEAN, as well as its member states, have devoted themselves to the war against terrorism. To some extent this has allowed the US a great influence in individual countries and altered regionalization. However, at the same time, the US 'needs' South-East Asian regional organization for combating international terrorism. Moreover, the US offensive in South-East Asia has caused both Japan and China to respond and strike deals on regional cooperation with ASEAN/South-East Asia, achieving long-awaited progress. Thus, the unilateral approach to global order does not, de facto, counteract regionalization, but rather operates through it, and to some extent triggers it. The counterintuitive conclusion is thus that an increasing unilateral pressure may not preclude a continued global regionalization, and that these two orders are not necessarily incompatible.

• Book Reviews: Online publication date: May-2004

  The myth of 1648: class, geopolitics and the making of modern International Relations. By Benno Teschke

  The international theory of Leonard Woolf: a study in twentieth-century idealism. By Peter Wilson

  L'action et le système du monde. By Thierry de Montbrial.

  Die neuen Internationalen Beziehungen: Forschungsstand und Perspektiven in Deutschland. Edited by Gunther Hellmann, Klaus Dieter Wolf and Michael Zürn.

  Humanitarian intervention and international relations. Edited by Jennifer Welsh

  Power and purpose: US policy toward Russia after the Cold War. By James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul

  Justice for crimes against humanity. Edited by Mark Lattimer and Philippe Sands

  Where is the Lone Ranger when we need him? America's search for a postconflict stability force. By Robert M. Perito

  CovertAction: the roots of terrorism. Edited by Ellen Ray and William H. Schaap

  Terror in the name of God: why religious militants kill. By Jessica Stern

  States in the global economy: bringing domestic institutions back in. Edited by Linda Weiss

  Monetary transmisson in diverse economies. Edited by Lavan Mahadeva and Peter Sinclair

  Global capital and national governments. By Layna Mosley

  Sharing the planet: population - consumption - species. Science and ethics for a sustainable and equitable world. Edited by Bob van der Zwaan and Arthur Petersen

  Driving the Soviets up the wall: Soviet-East German relations, 1953-1961. By Hope M. Harrison

  Khrushchev: the man and his era. By William Taubman

  Decision-making in Great Britain during the Suez crisis: small groups and a persistent leader. By Bertjan Verbeek

  Europe unites: the EU's eastern enlargement. By Peter A. Poole

  Beyond post-communist studies: political science and the new democracies of Europe. By Terry D. Clark

  An ounce of prevention: Macedonia and the UN experience in preventive diplomacy. By Henryk J. Sokalski

  Karaliauius ir Lietuva: nuostatos ir idejos. By Vytautas Landsbergis.

  Russia: experiment with a people. By Robert Service

  The resource curse in a post-communist regime: Russia in comparative perspective. By Younkyoo Kim

  Islam and democracy in the Middle East. Edited by Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Daniel Brumberg

  Islam, politics and pluralism: theory and practice in Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Algeria. By Jennifer Noyon

  Water, power and politics in the Middle East: the other Israeli-Palestinian conflict. By Jan Selby

  Politicide: Ariel Sharon's war against the Palestinians. By Baruch Kimmerling

  Africa's stalled development: international causes and cures. By David K. Leonard and Scott Straus

  Mandela's world: the international dimension of South Africa's political revolution 1990-99. By James Barber

  South Africa's post-apartheid foreign policy: from reconciliation to revival? Adelphi paper 362. By Chris Alden and Garth lePere

  Democratizing foreign policy? Lessons from South Africa. Edited by Philip Nel and Janis van der Westhuizen

  Kashmir: roots of conflict, paths to peace. By Sumantra Bose

  Governance in China. Edited by J. Howell

  Selling China: foreign direct investment during the reform era. By Yasheng Huang

  Elites and political power in South Korea. By Byong-Man Ahn

  Agenda for the nation. Edited by Henry J. Aaron, James M. Lindsay and Pietro S. Nivola

  American exceptionalism and the legacy of Vietnam: US foreign policy since 1974. By Trevor B. McCrisken

  Globalization and the American century. By Alfred E. Eckes, Jr and Thomas W. Zeiler

  Crime and violence in Latin America: citizen security, democracy and the state. Edited by Hugo Frühling, Joseph S. Tulchin and Heather A. Golding

  The Pinochet file: a declassified dossier on atrocity and accountability. By Peter Kornbluh

  The Condor years: how Pinochet and his allies brought terrorism to three continents. By John Dinges

  The Pinochet affair: state terrorism and global justice. By Roger Burbach.

  The Pinochet case: origins, progress and implications. Edited by Madeleine Davis.