Inter-regionalism In The Context Of Globalization

With the accelerating process of globalization and regionalization, and considering the worldwide expansion of the new wave of regionalism, inter-regionalism marked by institutional cooperation between different regions is becoming a new phenomenon of international relations. The thesis, based on the qualitative and quantitative research, leads to a definition that inter-regionalism is some institutional cooperation between the nation-states and regional organizations of various regions or sub-regions, either under the same regional framework or relying on the original framework. According to this concept, inter-regionalism could be divided into three types-dual regionalism, semi-regionalism and multi-regionalism. The variety of realization is not able to change the driven power which results from the dual function of globalization and regionalization. Consequently, the functions of inter-regionalism could be summarized as balancing power, constructing institution, strengthening identity, releasing the stress of globalization and deepening the proceeding of globalization. In the context of globalization, it is helpful for deepening the understanding of the relationship between globalization and regionalization through the case studies of EU and ASEAN inter-regionalism.This paper contains four chapters. The first one is introduction, including the reason for this topic, the meaning of this research, methodology, results and drawbacks. The second chapter focuses on defining the concept, providing a deep discussion about the definition, types, power and functions. The third chapter argues the inevitability and development of inter-regionalism in the aspect of EU-ASEAN relationship in the context of globalization. The fourth chapter, the most important part, respectively illustrates the characteristics of EU and ASEAN inter-regionalism and finally comparing each in different levels. In the conclusion part, this paper points out that as long as globalization is still in expansion, regionalization is still in-depth,’the proceeding of inter-regionalism will be irreversible.