There is an inescapable link between theory and practice. It is thus beyond question that a theory on regional integration is indispensable in the ideal world of scholarship and the real world of regional relations. At this historical juncture, the process of regional integration has to be analyzed against the background of global capitalism as depicted in the process of globalisation. Yet, the dominant discourse in the field of regional integration, and even of globalisation, has been the hegemony of economics. However, both the analytical and normative poverty of economics – with its emphasis on the logic of the market in the promotion of regional integration as well as its agenda of securing the hegemony of capitalist accumulation – have, in turn, impoverished the academic field of regional integration (and of globalisation) and the agenda for a just and humane regional formation.
Taking a cue from the father of the new international political economy, the critical theorist Robert W. Cox, who said ‘theory is for someone and for some purpose’, there is therefore a need to critically examine the leading theories of regional integration for understanding its dynamics, whether they are ideological tools in the maintenance of the global capitalist status quo (‘problem-solving theories’) or they aid in changing it (‘critical theory’). It is unfortunate that the established theories of regional integration derived from international relations, governance literature, and international political economy that have dominated regional studies fail to address the reality that regional integration is best understood within the dynamics of capitalism.
The first generation of theories drawn from international relations (IR), in particular the competing approaches of neo-functionalism (Ernst Haas) and inter-governmentalism (Stanley Hoffman and Andrew Moravcsik) that have dominated much of the debate; and the governance literature that tries to explain, specifically the European Union as a political system, including new institutionalism (Simon Bulmer), public policy analysis (Jeremy Richardson), multilevel governance (Gary Marks) and supranational governance (Markus Jachtenfuchs) would founder on their respective inabilities to situate their analysis on regional integration within the geographical landscape of global capitalism. Neither the obsession with the market assumptions of the economics approaches to regional integration such as customs union theory, optimal currency area, and fiscal federalism – including Mattli’s proposal in his book The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond that the objective of regional integration is the ‘improvement of economic growth and maintenance of political office’ – (see Walter Mattli 1999) captures the political economic logic and dynamics of regional integration because of their optimism in liberal economics at the expense of undermining the gravity of the inherent contradictions of capitalist accumulation. Likewise, the article of Sandro Sideri (1997) – ‘Globalisation and Regional Integration’ – while drawing on insights from international political economy by understanding regional integration under conditions of globalisation; by understanding the role of regional associations; by examining the claim that this development of a ‘regional bloc scenario’ is threatening to the continuance of multilateralism and will lead inevitably to trade wars; and by examining the conception of regionalism as a state(s)-led project to reorganise particular regional spaces along defined economic and political lines, and the tensions between regionalism and globalisation; misses the critical role of the global managers of capitalism such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in managing the contradictions inherent in global capitalism and the conflicts it generates, and it would be inadequate in meeting the normative agenda for global/regional transformation of a critical theory with its failure to identify the pivotal actor and moment for change.
A critical political economy approach is proposed here. In this historical moment best characterized by the ‘completion of the world market’ (Paul Cammack) or the ‘universalization of capitalism’ (Ellen Meiksins Wood), a theory on regional integration theory that would serve both as an intellectual filter in understanding regional dynamics against the background of global capitalism and as a transformative framework in orienting opposition to the hegemony of the unjust and inhumane global capitalist (disorder) maintained by multilateral and regional is most urgently needed. This critical political economy perspective would reveal the limitations and contradictions of regional integration and its concomitant governance institutions and mechanisms, and thereby makes it possible to identify points of weakness which the proponents of alternative futures can exploit.
