Since the 1990s, regional organizations of the United Nations and international financial institutions have adopted a new dynamic of transnational integration, within the framework of the ...regionalization process of globalization. In place of the growth triangles of the 1970s, a strategy based on transnational economic corridors has changed the scale of regionalization.
Thanks to the initiative of the Asian Development Bank, Southeast Asia provides two of the most advanced examples of such a process in East Asia with, on the one hand, the Greater Mekong Subregion, structured by continental corridors, and on the other, the Malacca Straits, combining maritime and land corridors. This book compares, after two decades, the effects of these developing networks on transnational integration in both subregions.
After presenting the general issue of economic corridors, the work deals with the characteristics and structures peculiar to these two regions, followed by a study of national strategies mobilizing actors at different levels of state organization. There follows a study of the emergence of new urban nodes on corridors at land and sea borders, and the impact of these corridors on the local societies. This approach makes it possible to compare the effects of transnational integration processes on the spatial and urban organization of the two subregions and on the increasing diversity of the stakeholders involved.
Enduring rivalries recurrently ensnare states in militarized disputes and wars. Are they poised to intensify in the Asia-Pacific, a region characterized by regime and cultural differences, ...territorial contests, and competing nationalist and regime claims? It is often argued that these conditions and recent power shifts are likely to lead to conflict escalation and contagion, especially in Sino-American relations. Steve Chan's book challenges this common view and argues instead that Asia-Pacific rivalries are likely to be held in abeyance. He suggests that the majority of leaders in the region wish to base their political legitimacy on their economic performance rather than popular mobilization against foreign enemies. Economic interdependence and political multilateralism have restrained and in some cases reversed rivalries. Although Asia-Pacific states will continue to quarrel, Chan argues that their relations are more stable today than at any other time since 1945.
With the advent of modernity, the sharing of resources and infrastructures rapidly expanded beyond local communities into regional, national, and even transnational space -- nowhere as visibly as in ...Europe, with its small-scale political divisions. This volume views these shared resource spaces as the seedbeds of a new generation of technology-rich bureaucratic and transnational commons. Drawing on the theory of cosmopolitanism, which seeks to model the dynamics of an increasingly interdependent world, and on the tradition of commons scholarship inspired by the late Elinor Ostrom, the book develops a new theory of "cosmopolitan commons" that provides a framework for merging the study of technology with such issues as risk, moral order, and sustainability at levels beyond the nation-state. After laying out the theoretical framework, the book presents case studies that explore the empirical nuances: airspace as transport commons, radio broadcasting, hydropower, weather forecasting and genetic diversity as information commons, transboundary air pollution, and two "capstone" studies of interlinked, temporally layered commons: one on overlapping commons within the North Sea for freight, fishing, and fossil fuels; and one on commons for transport, salmon fishing, and clean water in the Rhine. Contributors: Håkon With Andersen, Nil Disco, Paul N. Edwards, Arne Kaijser, Eda Kranakis, Kristiina Korjonen-Kuusipuro, Tiago Saraiva, Nina Wormbs The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket.
Using a novel common econometric specification, we examine the measurement of three important effects in international trade that historically have been addressed largely separately: the (partial) ...effects on trade of economic integration agreements, international borders, and bilateral distance. First, recent studies focusing on precise and unbiased estimates of effects of economic integration agreements (EIAs) on members׳ trade may be biased upward owing to inadequate control for time-varying exogenous unobservable country-pair-specific changes in bilateral export costs (possibly decreasing the costs of international relative to intranational trade); we find evidence of this bias using a properly specified gravity equation. Second, our novel methodology yields statistically significant estimates of the declining effect of “international borders” on world trade, now accounting for endogenous EIA formations and unobserved country-pair heterogeneity in initial levels. Third, we confirm recent evidence providing a solution to the “distance-elasticity puzzle,” but show that these estimates of the declining effect of distance on international trade are biased upward by not accounting for endogenous EIA formations and unobserved country-pair heterogeneity. We conclude our study with numerical general equilibrium comparative statics illustrating a substantive difference on trade effects of EIAs with and without allowance for the declining effects of international borders on world trade.
Rethinking Europe Delanty, Gerard; Rumford, Chris
2005, 20050915, 2005-09-15
eBook
Dominant approaches to the transformation of Europe ignore contemporary social theory interpretations of the nature and dynamics of social change. Here, Delanty and Rumford argue that we need a ...theory of society in order to understand Europeanization. This book advances the case that Europeanization should be theorized in terms of:
globalization
major social transformations that are not exclusively spear-headed by the EU
the wider context of the transformation of modernity.
This fascinating book broadens the terms of the debate on Europeanization, conventionally limited to the supersession of the nation-state by a supra-national authority and the changes within member states consequent upon EU membership.
Demonstrating the relevance of social theory to contemporary issues and with a focus on European transformation rather than simplistic notions of Europe-building, this truly multidisciplinary volume will appeal to readers from a range of social science disciplines, including sociology, geography, political science and European studies.
Euroclash Fligstein, Neil
2008, 2009, 2008-04-10, 20080101
eBook, Book
A major new interpretation of European integration. Leading scholar, Neil Fligstein, provocatively argues that European integration has produced a truly transnational European society.
This book seeks to comprehend the evolving nature of the European Union following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the failure of the European Constitution. Its prime focus is the last wave of ...enlargement that has profoundly transformed the EU. Although there are many parallels between the European integration process and state building processes, the Union is nothing like a Westphalian super state. The new emerging polity resembles a kind of neo-medieval empire with a polycentric system of government, multiple and overlapping jurisdictions, striking cultural and economic heterogeneity, fuzzy borders, and divided sovereignty. The book tries to spell out the origin, the shape, and the implications of this empire. The aim of this book is to suggest a novel way of thinking about the European Union and the process of European integration. The book shows 'two Europes' coming together following the end of the cold war. It proposes a system of economic and democratic governance that meets the ever greater challenges of modernization, interdependence, and globalization. It identifies the most plausible scenario of promoting peaceful change in Europe and beyond. The author argues that mainstream thinking about European integration is based on mistaken statist assumptions and suggests more effective and legitimate ways of governing Europe than through adoption of a European Constitution, creation of a European army, or introduction of a European social model. The book covers many fields from politics, and economics to foreign affairs and security. It analyzes developments in both Eastern and Western Europe. It also gives ample room to both theoretical and empirical considerations. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/politicalscience/9780199292219/toc.html
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