With the seventies started probably a new stage in the regional history of the world. Let’s remember seventies it was the end of this famous thirty years of economic development and economic progress in Europe. 1973 it was the first oil crisis, which hit the western economies. But probably seventies were the decade of a growing, increasing, appearing globalization, the world was moving to an interstate world to a global world. And at this time, during the seventies, European integration was strongly challenged and questioned while the institutional arrangement didn’t work anymore. So at this time was invented a new kind of regional integration which we would call neoregionalism, neoregional integration. What does it mean first? It means a new context as I mentioned, a context of economic crisis, of a growing new global world, an increasing role of the transnational actors, and especially multinational corporations, a world of communication, that’s to say a world, which is less and less territorial. This new regionalism is at this time a global phenomenon, that’s to say not limited to Europe as it was with the traditional regionalism, but which affected all the countries all the parts of the world. In fact Europe was first affected by this transformation, but Europe was not invented this new regionalism. This new regionalism came from Asia, came from this Far East which was strongly transformed. It’s the starting point of the transformation of China, but it’s also the moment when new economic actors appeared in Korea, in Taiwan, in Singapore, in Philippines, in Thailand and so on. This new regionalism had clearly a target: how to save the state in a turbulent global world? How to save the state, which was at this time threatened by these new transnational actors? But we are facing another paradox. You remember the paradox I mentioned about traditional regionalism. This paradox is now reversed. The new regionalism was not targeting the end of state but saving the state which was threatened by this new globalization. But at this time, states were weakened and were not able to take in charge this new regionalism. This new regionalism was then promoted by the new actors, by the economic actors, social actors, transnational actors more than states which were more passive and even marginalized and especially in Asia. This is a new paradox as this regionalism was targeting saving the states, was promoted by the non state actors. How can we characterize this new regionalism? First of all, it has never been really theorized. That’s to say we don’t find about new regionalism the equivalent of a David Mitrany for instance that I quoted in my last lecture. This new regionalism is much more pragmatic, has not been theorized and so is more in the hands of the actors than in the mind of the thinkers. The new actors are economic actors who are playing a very important role as I mentioned but also some political actors, those in Asia who wanted to promote a new Asian order, I mentioned for instance Mohamad ibn Mahathir in Malaysia or Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore who were promoting a vision of an Asia, which would be integrating beyond the borderlines of the nation-states. Another characteristic, and in my mind it’s the main one, is that this new regionalism was promoted by societies, by economies more than by politics. And this is something very interesting to obverse how economic actors in Asia from the seventies promoted pragmatic integration in spite of the borderlines in a part of the world which was however very conflicting and very rich in political competition. But what is interesting to note, to remark, is that it’s precisely in the part of the world the more politically competitive that took place this new integration, which was based on economic actors. And we find for instance the works of the Japanese scholar Kenichi Ohmae who was speaking of region-states, that’s to say the economic and social dynamics of regions for overcoming the classical political order, the traditional political order based on territory and borderline. But I will specially mention Robert Scalapino who was analyzing the transformation of the Asian geography by stressing on the role of what he called natural economic territory (NETs). And he explained that there is now a dynamic, an economic dynamic among the economies of the eastern Asia, which is conducting this process of integration by ignoring the political dynamics and the political conflicts. It’s the time when were built in Asia the famous “growth triangles”, and the time when investors coming from Taiwan were conquering the Chinese main land and settling and developing their activities on this part of China without visa, without political control, without political containment. It’s the time when were developed these famous “Economic special zones” along the rim of China. It’s the time when even South Korea and North Korea were cooperating for building up the famous Kaesong special zone in which North Korean workers were working under the supervision of South Korean corporations. This new kind of integration is then undertaken from below, from the society. Politics was at this time limited to its own strict concerns that’s to say political competition. What is probably fascinating is that this conception of a regional integration coming from below was extending to all the world. We found it in Latin America, we found it even in North America through the NAFTA/ALENA, but we found it even in Europe at this time Europe was facing a very strong institutional crisis inability to progress in its institutional infrastructures. And at this time non-political actors, non-state actors played a very important role for giving a new dynamic of the European integration, through regional cooperation, economic cooperation, social cooperation, exchanges of students and so on. We are now in this new world, that’s to say this world where institutions cannot really be adapted, are resistant, are resilient and when progress is coming from social dynamics. If Europe has not totally collapsed it’s thanks to the social actors, non-state actors, Erasmus students, cooperation among the European firms and so on. This new regionalism is probably jeopardizing our vision of politics and probably our vision of democracy because it’s no more controlled, contained by the political dynamics coming from people sovereignty, That’s why Europe now is probably threatened of a new crisis even if it was able to survive through these new dynamics.
