New-Regionalism: The Slipknot of the Two Rival Trends?

Abstract

The world's security structure is facing a qualitative change and there is an ongoing search for achieving equilibrium for global security. There is a need to analyze what the catalytic determinants of the contemporary security issues are. Examining the issue of regionalism may be helpful to reveal those determinants to some extent. The fact that new threats to the new security environment are regional in scope and effect, regions and regionalism can be considered as the prominent unit of analysis level. Especially, regionalism may suggest a theoretical framework for assessing the two main trends of globalization which are consolidation and disintegration. In an effort to widen the scope of regionalism, this study firstly overviews the regionalism studies of the Cold War era. Secondly, the 'new-regionalism' and the alternate approaches within the new-regionalism studies are mentioned. Finally, it is offered that how a regional perspective can enrich the inquiry of the catalytic determinants. The purpose of this paper is to introduce and explain the theoretical basis of new-regionalism in security studies and to contribute to the acceleration of the discussions since regionalism can be the slipknot of the consolidation and disintegration trends both in theory and in practice.