Regional Integration

The UNESCO-MOST Policy Brief Collection on Regional Integration Studies is based on a cooperation agreement between UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Programme and the United Nations University’s Unit on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS, Bruges, Belgium). The collection draws on the UNU-CRIS Working Papers Series that is devoted to the study of regional integration from a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. UNESCO’s “Management of Social Transformations Programme” (MOST) is applying a novel knowledge management methodology to the UNU-CRIS research base. UNU-CRIS Working Papers are made into MOST policy briefs, aiming at enhanced usability and dissemination of research results for decision-makers as well as their saving time and cognitive cost. The approach is in line with the UNESCO-MOST Programme’s mandate to improve research-policy linkages and to promote a culture of evidence-based policy-making at international, regional and national level.

The present collection of selected policy briefs seeks to encourage scientifically informed debate on comparative regional integration processes, by providing tools to answer the institutional, social and cultural challenges of globalization at the level of both macro-regions and micro-regions. Areas such as the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security, economic development and international trade, human rights, functional and technical cooperation, and environmental protection all require joint action to reduce costs and to bring order and regularity to international relations. Such common problems cannot be addressed unilaterally, but must be dealt with on a multilateral scale for optimal effectiveness.

While multilateralism appears to be under challenge from the two fronts of institutions that were forged in the post-World War and Cold War environment, and from inter-state structures, cooperation is in many areas deepening and thriving at the regional level. Regionalization can be regarded as a political response to globalization. Region-building offers a contemporary answer to the globalization-enhanced integration and disintegration pressures on states. Thus, regional integration can contribute to a more reasonable pattern of globalization via a strong social dimension centered on the empowerment of people and countries in relations to global economic forces.