Comparative Regional Integration


Book Description

This volume features up-to-date studies of regional integration efforts, particularly those made in North America, South America, and East Asia. Comparisons are drawn between these efforts and those made in the EU, where integration has progressed much further. The book asks: what explains the variation in achievements? What kind of agreements are needed to produce regional integration? Is 'pooling and delegation' of sovereignty necessary? How important is regional leadership?




Regions at Risk


Book Description

Human-induced environmental change is to be found throughout the world, but there are areas that scientists consider to be "critical regions" - regions that are particularly vulnerable to or suffering from environmental degradation. In this volume nine such "critical environmental regions" (Amazonia, the Aral Sea basin, the middle mountains of Nepal, Kenya's Ukambani region, the US Southern High Plains, the Mexico Basin, the North Sea, the Ordos Plateau of China, and the eastern Sundaland region of South-East Asia) are examined as case-studies. In chapter one the authors provide a detailed look into the concepts of environmental criticality and endangerment and propose formal definitions. The nine regional studies that follow in the subsequent chapters serve to translate the conceptual framework into the physical and social realities of each area. The case-studies make available an up-to-date synthesis of vast amounts of inaccessible data, and as such will be valuable to scholars and policy makers interested in specific areas of the world and others interested in regional comparisons. Anyone concerned with global environmental change, criticality, human-environment interactions, and how societies in different regions have responded to environmental degradation will find much that is new and important in this pioneering, innovative study.




Handbook on the Geographies of Regions and Territories


Book Description

This new international Handbook provides the reader with the most up-to-date and original viewpoints on critical debates relating to the rapidly transforming geographies of regions and territories, as well as related key concepts such as place, scale, networks and regionalism. Bringing together renowned specialists who have extensively theorized these spatial concepts and contributed to rich empirical research in disciplines such as geography, sociology, political science and IR studies, this interdisciplinary collection offers fresh, cutting-edge, and contextual insights on the significance of regions and territories in today’s dynamic world.




Comparative Regional Integration


Book Description

This volume features up-to-date studies of regional integration efforts in all major parts of the world, especially North America, South America, and East Asia. Comparisons are drawn between these efforts and those made in the EU, where integration has progressed much further. The book asks: what explains the variation in achievements? What kind of agreements and institutions are needed to produce regional integration? Is 'pooling and delegation' of sovereignty necessary to overcome 'collective action problems'? How important is regional leadership? This work is a major new contribution to the literature on regional integration, and will appeal to theorists, policymakers, students and other readers concerned about world developments. It will also be of value to courses covering international political economy, international relations and regional integration, at both undergraduate and graduate level.




Comparing Globalizations


Book Description

This work explores essential debates on globalization and world-systems analysis. It begins with a review of theoretical insights from world-systems analysis and explains the evolution of its terminology. The book subsequently seeks to answer several important questions: When did globalization begin and what insights into contemporary globalization may be gained from older forms? How does globalization differ in different places, and how can different instances of globalization be compared? Who is affected by globalization, how are they affected, and how do these effects vary, if at all, over time and space? As world-systems analysis and studies of globalization require interdisciplinary expertise, the contributing authors draw on many fields, including anthropology, economics, geography, philosophy, political science, sociology, and world history. The book’s overall goal is to facilitate the dialogue between approaches that, at times, seem to “talk at cross-purposes,” and to extend an invitation to scholars from many different areas to explore globalization.




OECD Regions at a Glance 2005


Book Description

OECD Regions at a Glance presents a series of regional indicators for OECD countries comparing regional performance in such areas as economic growth, productivity, industry specialisation, education, health, safety, commuting times, etc.




Comparing Rural Development


Book Description

Comparing case studies from Finland, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Scotland and Sweden, this book describes and analyses the role of networks and social capital in rural development across rural Europe. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective, bringing together a group of leading geographers, sociologists and anthropologists to address the tension between studying 'local' rural development and the 'globalized' nature of modern economies and societies.




The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism


Book Description

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.




Regional Comparisons in Comparative Policy Analysis Studies


Book Description

Volume Three of the Classics of Comparative Policy Analysis, contains chapters concerned with "Regional Comparisons and Policy Analysis" – one of the most prevailing approaches in comparative public policy. Through the prism of inter-jurisdiction comparisons of similarities and variations, they address comparisons in specific policy sectors, governance or institutional constructs, and political regimes. The foci are, nevertheless, on those comparisons between countries or regions, which help to lesson-draw by identifying and understanding the variation in policy analysis and policy making that exists within or across regions. One benefit of regional comparisons is that it often allows studies to hold constant many variables, ranging from colonial legacy to federal systems, or from language to specific traditions, and more effectively isolate dependent variables. Regional organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) or European Union are also considered as catalysts for regional policy approaches and harmonization, and occupy a major role in this volume. The chapters address a broad and diverse number of countries and geographical areas: Latin America, North America, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, the Baltic states, the Nordic states, Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Europe as a whole. "Regional Comparisons and Policy Analysis" will be of great interest to scholars and learners of public policy and social sciences, as well as to practitioners considering what can be learned or facilitated through methodologically and theoretically sound approaches. The chapters were originally published as articles in the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis which in the last two decades has pioneered the development of comparative public policy. The volume is part of a four-volume series, the Classics of Comparative Policy Analysis including Theories and Methods, Institutions and Governance, Regional Comparisons, and Policy Sectors. Each volume showcases a different new chapter comparing domains of study interrelated with comparative public policy: political science, public administration, governance and policy design, authored by the JCPA co-editors Giliberto Capano, Iris Geva-May, Michael Howlett, Leslie A. Pal and B. Guy Peters.




Comparative Area Studies


Book Description

In the post-World War II era, the emergence of 'area studies' marked a signal development in the social sciences. As the social sciences evolved methodologically, however, many dismissed area studies as favoring narrow description over general theory. Still, area studies continues to plays a key, if unacknowledged, role in bringing new data, new theories, and valuable policy-relevant insights to social sciences. In Comparative Area Studies, three leading figures in the field have gathered an international group of scholars in a volume that promises to be a landmark in a resurgent field. The book upholds two basic convictions: that intensive regional research remains indispensable to the social sciences and that this research needs to employ comparative referents from other regions to demonstrate its broader relevance. Comparative Area Studies (CAS) combines the context-specific insights from traditional area studies and the logic of cross- and inter-regional empirical research. This first book devoted to CAS explores methodological rationales and illustrative applications to demonstrate how area-based expertise can be fruitfully integrated with cutting-edge comparative analytical frameworks.