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.
This article introduces the topic of this special issue, namely the study of the EU as a global actor & the role of interregionalism. It starts with mapping out the general theme & the key questions that guide the issue, such as: to what extent are regions becoming 'actors' of world politics; what is the strength of interregionalism in the EU's foreign policies towards regions & across sectors; why is interregionalism being pursued & who are the actors driving such policy; & what are the implications for world order & global governance? Region-to-region interactions are no novelty, as such, but they have only recently started to emerge on a more comprehensive scale. Interregionalism is related to changes in world order & needs therefore to be historically situated. The authors suggest that interregionalism needs to be related both to globalization & to the restructuring of the nation-state, but above all to 'the regionalist movement'. In the second section, the emergence of interregionalism is presented from an historical perspective & the concept of interregionalism is discussed. The article ends with a brief overview of the structure & content of the special issue as a whole. References. Adapted from the source document.