Regions, Regionalism and Regional Integration

Prominent European regional integration theorist David Mitrany was critical of the League of Nations (LoN) and said that it collapsed due to inaction. Mitrany was referring to the failure of the LoN to prevent World War – II.  Discarding the federalist approach ingrained in the legal framework of the LoN, Mitrany advocated cooperation in functional areas as a remedy for regional integration. Mitrany was aware of the fact that nation-states wary of their sovereign authority will oppose the idea of pooling sovereignty. However, nation-states may accept such a proposition if it delivers what they intend to achieve but cannot do so without cooperating with others. A Functionalist believes that regional integration is possible if nation-states work together in areas of mutual benefit. Sharing sovereignty for specific gains is not a zero-sum game for a nation. He further defined that functional areas will be technical that allows flexibility of approach; it blurs the distinction betwee...

We have entered into the second decade of the 21st century, where the world is taking a new turn. The Post-Cold War euphoria with globalisation has now almost faded with a country like the USA under the Presidentship of Mr. Donald Trump is calling for economic protectionism. There is a realisation that globalisation has failed to deliver on its promises, the foremost amongst them was of prosperous and egalitarian world order. Remember, Francis Fukuyama, termed the collapse of the Soviet Union as the end of history. Interestingly, after Mr. Donald Trump won the US Presidential election in 2016 on the agenda of ‘America First’, the neo-liberal magazine The Economist in its editorial said, “history is back with a vengeance”.  Mr. Trump is opposed to globalisation, and he started imposing high tariffs on import, thereby, giving an advantage to domestic industries.   Mr. Trump is critical of the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the present economic outlook of the US...

India- Pakistan relations have hardly witnessed a long period of truce and friendship after the partition of 1947. There are layers of complications between the two sides; the most important is Kashmir and terrorism. So much is the pessimism that even established scholars evades prediction on Indo-Pak relations. Nevertheless, there had been attempts to mend this relationship. The Shimla agreement of 1972 and bus diplomacy (1999) of late Indian Prime Minister   Atal Behari Vajpayee could be counted as a few positive ones.   There are remarkable outcomes of both these initiatives in the form of the Samjhuta Express and Sada-e-Sarhad – the train and bus services between the two sides. Interestingly, there are particular geostrategic contexts of these above mentioned forward movements in the India Pakistan relations. The Shimla agreement was signed after 1971 India-Pakistan war. Likewise, the bus diplomacy was also a way to respond to the interna...

The day when the largest democracy of the world India, will arrive at a judgment on the next government, another unique and important democracy of the world will start voting to elect not national but regional representatives.   The European Parliament (EP) election begins on 23rd May with voting in the United Kingdom (UK) and ends on 26th May 2019. This time it is a   four-phase election for the European Union (EU) member states, with the majority of Europe voting on 26th May. The EP has 751 representatives, directly elected by the citizens of the EU in every five years. The previous election was in 2014, and a lot has changed in the last five years.   The most unusual event in the history of the EU is the exit of a member state. The UK decided on giving up the membership in 2016 (Brexit), presently is in the process of completing the formalities.   The date of departure of the UK   from the EU is 31st October 2019.   Likewise,   ...

In the last few months, we have witnessed theatrical politics in the UK that opted for Brexit in 2016.  In 2016, the UK through a referendum decided to exit the EU.  It was a very polarised debate with 48.1 per cent who voted in the referendum voted to remain in the EU, and a mere 3 per cent (51.89%) more have voted for the exit. In a democracy it is about the majority; thus, the retreat was accepted by the UK.  Brexit was accepted, but it failed to move from there.  Even in the referendum, the nation remained divided. Out of four constituents of the UK, only England and Wales opted for exit whereas Scotland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of remain.  Name Leave (%)   Remain   (%) England 53.4 46.6 Northern Ireland 44.2 55.8 Scotland 38 62 Wales 52.5 47.5 Source: BBC URL  https://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/resu...