Regions in orbit, globalisation pieced together

A new regional association of countries has just been born. Baptized "African Union" (AU, see (1)), fashioned a bit vaguely after the European Union (EU), it has emerged out of the OAU, almost just as the EU derived form the EEC . With the AU, another continental trade grouping is setting out to surf the waves of globalisation.

It is worth noting that globalisation has not resulted in any decline of regional groupings' importance. To the contrary, it can be argued: regions are driving sub-units of the increasingly integrating world economy, across countries and continents. It seems as if few countries are politically and economically capable to brave the tides of globalization on their own. In the new age of globalised competition and networking, crumbling political control over the course of global capitalism goes hand in hand with deregulation of investment patterns and deterioration of social development standards, within and across borders.

As those segments of society with access to resources and information prosper while the marginalized groups struggle to maintain average or fragile livelihoods, social and economic divisions deepen, like cracks in a melting glacier. Clinging on to the edge is often the most they can possibly hope for. Confrontations and conflict over access to globalisations' benefits are likely to rise, social institutions are loosing their ability to integrate and mediate. Nation states try to stay afloat by forging regional alliances and intensifying economic cooperation. At times it may appear as a contradiction that globalization and regionalisation evolve side by side. M. Kasse has provided a useful interpretation of this trend. He suggests: " Is regionalisation compatible with globalisation, and particularly the new multilateralism (WTO)? In other words, won't regionalism be either a necessary stage on the way to multilateralism (a multipolar world comprising highly competitive regional blocs), or an alternative to multilateralism (regional blocs substituting for the unacceptable rules of multilateral organisations and becoming places of retreat). The form currently taken by regional blocs shows that they are places for concentrating the sum total of financial, industrial, scientific, technological, cultural and political functions." The "rich" countries (mostly OECD members) are well-integrated into the global economy, frequently through their regional institutions deciding, determining and directing the rules of globalization. In principal, competition in the capitalist "free-market" is universal, a "level playing field" all actors need to acknowledge. But aside from the ideology, the distortions are more than real, with countries seeking to secure national advantages at the expense of theirs, wither directly or through regional blocks. For weaker, marginal and often disintegrated countries, regional linkages offer a promising approach to stay on the radar screen of the fast-paced global economy.

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