Jean Grugel and Wil Hout(Eds.) Regionalism Across the North-South Divide : State Strategies and Globalization (London: Routledge, 1999, 198pp.)

The editors of this useful study combine a theoretical framework with the analysis of different regional approaches to security and economic development. The editors theoretical foundation owes much to the world- system approach largely associated with the writings of Immanuel Wallerstein, whose three related books are: The Modern World-System (1974), The Capitalist World-Economy (1979), and The Politics of the World-Economy (1984). Christopher Chase-Dunn’s Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy (1989) and Giovanni Arrighi’s The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (1994) follow in the same theoretical framework. As the editors note “In Wallerstein’s world-system theory, the capitalist world economy is composed of a dominant developed core, a subordinate poor periphery and a political and economic ‘buffer’ called the semi-periphery. He argues that an international division of labour has gradually developed in which some units have come to produce predominantly primary products (agricultural produce and raw materials) while others have been able to develop technologically more sophisticated production processes. Over the last few decades, a ‘new international division of labour’ has come into being in which the traditional dichotomy between primary production and manufacturing has become blurred and parts of the typical core production processes have been transferred to peripheral and semi-peripheral areas.” The bulk of the book concerns the political and economic policies of some of the semi-peripheral states. “So, rather than mechanically applying world-system theory, we have tried to retain some aspects of this theory which are most useful, without going so far with it that it operates as a theoretical straitjacket… We use i t (the term semi-peripheral state) to describe those states in which manufacturing, industrial or capital-intensive production occurs alongside the production of primary or semi-processed goods and in which there is domestic capital accumulation as well as foreign investment. As a result, the semi-peripheral state is, typically, far more complex in its functions and in the interests it represents than peripheral states, but the range of development choices, and the policy instruments at its disposal, are more constrained and limited than those of core states.” The editors make a useful distinction between globalization ( a process without clearly defined policy makers), regionalization, which like globalization is an historic and emerging process – the regional expression of the global processes of economic integration – and regionalism which is a conscious political project – the outcome of detailed bargaining and negotiation among domestic political actors. The books deals primarily with regionalism – the conscious state policy to advance the interests of the state by cooperation or more formal types of integration, often with states within the core — a good example being Mine Eder’s chapter “ Becoming Western: Turkey and the European Union.” Less structured integration is outlined by David Seddon in “Unequal partnership: Europe, the Maghreb and the new regionalism.”

An example of a strong semi-periphery state associating with weak states of the periphery in order to advance its position toward the core is given by Derek McDougall “Australia and regionalism in the Asia-Pacific.” The role of theory in political analysis is not to explain why things work as they do, but rather what to look for. These chapters are a good analysis of state-society relations in making government policy concerning regional associations such as MERCOSUR, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Association of South Asian Nations (ASEAN).

While the book is written primarily for political scientists with a strong knowledge of the theoretical approaches to the study of the world society, the book is a rich overview of different regional efforts. René Wadlow

Drawing: Irene Collett