network of research and training centres and programmes
Issue 14: February 2002
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UNU Update | |
| The newsletter of United Nations
University and its network of research and training centres and programmes |
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Issue 14: February 2002 |
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Q&A:
Well, it is not really a "discipline" in the sense that physics or psychology are disciplines. Regional Integration Studies is an interdisciplinary area of studies focusing on the processes and impacts of regions voluntarily working together in more or less geographical groupings. Classical examples of such macro-regional integration schemes between States are the European Union, Mercosur or ASEAN. But regions also occur within countries or even across borders of neighbouring countries, and the development of such micro-regions can be related to the development of macro-regions. So the fascinating thing is that today’s world is no longer a world of nations and countries as has been the case since the famous Westphalian peace treaty in 1648. In addition to nations, both micro- and macro regions are also important players in the field of international politics and economics. If we want to understand governance at an international or global level, we simply cannot ignore regions. What then is the relationship between regional integration and globalisation? Globalisation refers to both the emergence of a global economy and to a series of non-economic developments with worldwide implications. Regional integration can be regarded both as a manifestation of and a response to globalisation. As today’s improved communication and transport systems and falling trade barriers have made the world smaller, there seems to be a growing pressure on countries to organise themselves at a macro-regional level. So while the driving forces for globalisation are mainly coming from private industry and trade, governments and public actors primarily drive regionalisation. As such one can think of regionalisation processes as possible ways of "controlling" the disadvantages (bads) of globalisation and as building blocks for the globalisation of public goods. How and why does regional integration occur? And what is there to be researched about it? Regional
integration occurs whenever there is a will of sovereign states to work
together. And undoubtedly, regional integration schemes have multiplied in
the past few years. For instance, almost half of the regional trade
arrangements in effect have been established since 1990. But it is also
true that many integration attempts have failed. This is especially the
case in Africa. The
most often quoted reason for regional integration is the creation of
bigger markets that should boost trade and thus prosperity in the region.
Such economic integration can take the form of free trade areas, customs
unions, common markets or even economic unions when there is a complete
unification of monetary and fiscal policy. We are experiencing the latter
in Europe now with even the currency disparities being removed thanks to
the Euro. But integration can also be triggered by political reasons such
as the management of border and ethnic conflicts: when countries work
together in a regional way, there seems to be less drive and room for
inter-state conflicts. Next to economic and security reasons, states and
their citizens can have many other specific reasons for regional
collaboration: for instance co-investing in costly infrastructure or in
programmes for poverty reduction. Furthermore, regional collaborations in
combating global problems such as global warming, diseases etc, can also
be effective as most of those problems cannot be stopped at national
frontiers. The
advocates of regional integration will see all of the above as positive
effects. The question is of course to what extent and under what
conditions such positive effects occur and also what could be the possible
negative effects. Exactly here a lot of research is needed to map and
monitor the possible positive and negative aspects. It is astonishing to
note that only limited evidence is available on the effects of, for
instance, regional trader arrangements on flows of trade and investment,
and hardly any research exists on their larger societal impact. Also, we
still know little about what exactly brings countries to invest in
regional integration and thereby deliberately give up some of their
national sovereignty. Moreover, one cannot ignore the fact that integration is also
something that touches upon the identity of citizens. Again this calls for
research. Thus we clearly see a need to increase insights into the
opportunities and challenges created by processes of integration,
especially in developing countries where we think there is also a need for
capacity building activities built upon policy relevant research. Therefore we want to establish a strong network of academic and non-academic partners around the Bruges-based centre. How did the initiative for Comparative Regional Integration Studies come about? What are the advantages of locating it in Belgium? Several
factors contributed to how the initiative was established. First there was
a group of academics and civil servants that started at the College of
Europe in Bruges, a kind of movement to promote interdisciplinary, participatory and prospective research in the Social Sciences. As the
College of Europe focuses on European integration processes, this was soon
high on the agenda of that group, which was called BRIOSS (the Bruges
research initiative for Opening the Social Sciences). Secondly, contacts
with UNU Rector Van Ginkel further opened the work of this group to
regional integration initiatives worldwide. Van Ginkel also pointed us
toward the so-called "new regionalism" movement that had been studied
at UNU/WIDER and towards the necessity of integrating in regionalism
research the study of regions at different geographical scales. And
thirdly, the Flemish Government proved very helpful in making available
the necessary funds as they clearly saw the interest of promoting research
on comparative regional integration in the framework of the UNU. So our location in Bruges/Flanders/Belgium/Europe, to name the different geographical levels of where we are, is no coincidence: Europe is certainly one of the most advanced systems of political and economic integration (which by the way does not mean that Europe is therefore a model for other integration schemes), and Belgium has not only been one of the main drivers of that integration process, it is today also a country in which micro-regions have a lot of political and economic powers. Flanders, a constitutional region of Belgium, is also active in promoting a "Europe of the regions", and there are lots of debates going on. Being in Bruges also gives us an opportunity to operate in the stimulating environment of the College of Europe and to be close to the European institutions, as Brussels is only an hour away. So, while there are many intellectual reasons why we should be in Bruges, there is also an important emotional reason: it is one of the most beautiful cities of the world! How will the centre work and what will it main goals be? We
are developing our own research priorities (endorsed by the UNU Council)
and will try to attract external funds for that research. Next, we have
the ambition to become the centre of competence on comparative regional
integration so that in the future we hope to be solicited for research and
advice by many different actors in the field of regional integration. We also intend to be pro-active in the field of capacity building and develop training initiatives in the field of governance of regional integration. Civil servants at both international and national levels and civil society will be our target audiences. At
present we have started an initial research programme along the following
five research tracks:
Within these broad tracks, several projects are being started up. It is important to stress that overall we want to conduct research in a participatory, comparative and future-oriented way. This means that we want to involve relevant stakeholders in the research processes as much as possible and we are focusing upon the questions regarding what future states of regional integration are possible. For the latter we will make extensive use of so-called scenario-methods. How did you become interested in this subject? By coincidence really. As a civil servant (I was deputy secretary general of the Belgian federal ministry of science policy) I, on behalf of the Belgian government, was sitting on the boards of the College of Europe in Bruges and the European University Institute in Florence. This brought me into contact with the academic study of regional integration. Meanwhile, as an academic I was teaching qualitative research methods at the free University of Brussels. I have long been active in promoting and conducting interdisciplinary and action-oriented research. In the BRIOSS group both worlds merged, and together with some other people I started working on regional integration as a social sciences problem. I should also note that as Deputy Secretary General, I have lived first hand how complex and fascinating integration processes can be if applied to specific policy domains. Take for instance science policy: there is a big debate now in Europe on how to create a single European Research Area and meanwhile a lot of the competencies regarding science policy in Belgium have been devolved to the level of the regions such as Flanders and Wallonia. This makes policy-making very complex (Belgium has now I think seven Ministers responsible for Science Policy and yet during the Belgian Presidency of the European Union, there could only be one Minister chairing the meetings of the European Council). What are the centre’s most important events and undertakings in its first full year of operation? In research nothing can be more important than human resources, so now our top priority is to attract top researchers. Meanwhile, there are already some events scheduled: there will be an academic opening event in May with the Flemish Minister of Education and Rector van Ginkel in attendance, and we are currently planning several workshops on topics such as regional trade arrangements and the development of indicators to monitor regional integration. People can check our website to learn about the things we are planning. We also have started to build a database on regional integration worldwide, and there is a project running on the building of an Internet based educational module on integration. Such projects are laying the foundations for our future research and capacity building activities. As
I already said, establishing a worldwide network of partners in academia
and in relevant institutions is also a priority. So anyone who is
interested in working together with us is kindly invited to contact me at director@cris.unu.edu |
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