United Nations University Comparative Regional Integration Studies

1
European Studies Postgraduate Conference

• Jean Monnet Center of Excellence
• University of Manchester
• 25 January 2008

2
TitleRegional Peace and Security through
Economic Integration The Applicability of the EU
Model in South Asia

• Golam Robbani
• PhD Researcher
• UNU-CRIS, Brugge, Belgium
• Presently Visiting PhD Student (sprint 2008)
• University of Essex

3
A quick guide to the presentation

• Introduction
• Research question, methodology, motivation
• Literature review
• Philosophical view, Great Mens desire, and
  Empirical literature
• Regional integration and Kantian TripodGap
• Comparison EU vs. SAARC
• Final observation

4
Research Questions

• 1. Does Regional Economic Integration promote
  peace?
• -Does it promote peace among member-states?
• -Does it promote peace with neighbouring states
  of a region?
• -What is the role of RI in global governance?
• 2. To what extent the EU experience is replicable
  elsewhere?
• -Is this a model?
• -Is it replicable elsewhere, i.e. in South Asia?

5
Methodology

• Theoretical arguments
• Positioning RI in Kantian Peace proposition
• Empirical analysis (on-going)
• Logit model (following Oneal Russett, 1999 in
  JPR)
• Introducing a new variable RRD in place of
  PRD
• Expectation positive relation between RI and
  peace
• Case study
• EU versus SAARC

6
Source of motivation

• too many-too few in numbers
• Failure/success
• too slow - too fast in action
• Multilateralism vs. bilateralism
• Where is the second best?
• too good - too bad in performance
• EU vs. SAARC
• too much too little in research
• economic vs. political impact analysis

7
Philosophical View

• Montesquieu (1748)
• Commerce cures destructive prejudices the
  natural effect of commerce is to lead to peace
• (Montesquieu, 1989 1748, cited in Irwin,
  2002 45-46).
• Kants Dream over world peace
• (Perpetual Peace- A Philosophical Sketch, 1795)
• Open commerce
• Democracy
• International Organization
• Observation We have all .but.Where is the
  peace?

8
Great Mens Desire

• Supporters of commercial peace
• British Statesman Richard Cobden (in 1846), John
  Bright (in 1858), Sir Norman Angell (in 1913) and
  Jacob Viner (in 1937)
• a world open for commerce would be a world at
  peace
• (President Woodrow Wilson, see Destler, 2005 6)
• unhampered trade dovetailed with peace high
  tariffs, trade barriers, and unfair economic
  competition, with war
• (Roosevelts secretary of state Cordell Hull
• Skeptics to the liberal view.
• Hamilton (in 1791), List (in 1842) and
  Hirschman. Critics of free markets, such as V.I.
  Lenin (1970 1916) and Patrick Buchanan (1998),
  argue that globalization generates not amity, but
  added international antagonism. Kenneth Waltz
  (1979) belongs to this group.

9
Empirical literature

• Commercial peace hypothesis
• Trading nations fight less
• Polachek, 1980 Russett Oneal, 2001 Oneal
  Russett, 1999, 2003a, 2003b Robst, Polachek
  Chang, 2006- to name a few. For a critique
  Barbieri, 2005. Latest Gelpi Grieco 2008 JPR
• Democratic peace dividend
• Democracies rarely fight each other
• Russett and Oneal, 200136 Russett 1993 Ray,
  1995 Chan, 1997 Maoz 1998 for a critical
  analysis see Rasler and Thompson, 2005 Slantchev
  et al, 2005
• International Organization
• Reduce conflict but still in the grey
• Russett Oneal, 2001 212 Boehmer et al,
  2004

10
Why Regional Integration?

• Twin developments since the 1990s
• Widespread globalization
• Liberalization, privatization, communication,
  etc.
• Unprecedented speed of regionalization
• 380 now 400 by 2010 (Warwick Comn. 2008)
• Observation
• Regional integrations are being seen as a major
  trend with a new, genuinely worldwide economic
  and political phenomenon having a significant
  impact on various issue areas (Hettne, 2005).

11
Research Gap

• Mansfield and Pevehouse (2003 248) observe
• proliferation of regional integration has been a
  huge phenomenon in the field of international
  political economy. Economic implications of this
  new development have widely been studied and
  fiercely debated, but analyses of their impact on
  political-military relations have been sparse.
• Mansfield (2003232) also suggests that there is
  ample reason to expect that the growth of these
  arrangements will promote peace and cooperation
  among member states, an important political
  benefit that has not been fully appreciated in
  debates on the consequences of regionalism.
• My endeavor is towards filling this gap.

12
Fitting RI on Kantian Tripod

• Three elements of regional integration
• Basically trade integration, at least in initial
  years
• Conditionality democracy, rule of law, respect
  for HR
• International organizationtreaties, MoUs, and
  often, not always, with secretariats

13
In Kants own words

• the three legs of the tripod are not truly
  independent elements that are individually useful
  in preventing wars. Rather, they are integrally
  related (Kant 1795 1970 quoted in Russett
  Oneal, 2001 157).
• Our observation
• Regional integration nicely fits into Kantian
  tripod.
• World wide involvement in integration schemes
  around the globe deserves additional attention to
  the issue, particularly from IPE perspective.

14
Empirical analysis (on-going)

• Following Oneal and Russett 1999 (JPR)
• Model Logit
• Independent variable MID for RRD
• Explanatory RI, Democracy, Trade, etc.
• Data mainly COW, IMF, Polity III.
• Time span 1950-1992 (?)

15
Case Study EU vs. SAARC

• Is the EU a model for others?
• Like a Model of aircraft to emulate?
• Key success factor of the EU
• Functionalism, supra-nationalism, strong
  leadership, external pressure/support
• What is SAARC
• Initiated by Bangladesh, established in 1985.
• Progress so far
• SAPTA (1993) SAFTA (2006). Only 5 of
  intra-regional trade.
• Problems
• India-Pakistan tension, Big-brother issue, weak
  secretariat

16
(No Transcript)
17
Looking ahead

• Vision
• Economic Union following EU!
• putting the curt before the horse! Why bilateral
  now?
• Lessons to be learnt
• Piece-meal approach
• functionalism might be dead in Europe, but still
  alive elsewhere just need proper treatment.
• What is missing
• political will/pragmatic leadership

18
Final observation

• RI nicely fits in Kantian tripod, therefore, at
  least theoretically, it should promote peace
• Problem is not with the model per se, but
  certainly with implementation capacity/willingness
  to sacrificing/pooling of sovereignty
• Not conclusive yetneed further research

19

• Thank You
• For your attention
• Contact mdgolamr_at_yahoo.com