Regionalism, globalism and complexity: a stimulus towards global IR?

ABSTRACT The growing complexity in international politics sheds new light on an old concept – that of regionalism. Regionalism has been studied in terms of integration and cooperation, in the broader context of the establishment of multilateral liberal networks and the promotion of globalisation processes. But the concept of regionalism is dramatically different today, with regions and regionalism taking a quasi-autonomous role in shaping global policies and in addressing several issues and areas previously tackled in the framework of global multilateral institutions. Building on the existing literature, the main assumption of this paper is that regionalism as a set of policies and economic measures could be considered as an obvious output as well as a consequence of a strategic path-breaking behaviour adopted by international actors in the context of a changing global world order. In order to understand and to cast this regional dynamic properly, it is necessary to depart from the traditional Western-centric materialist and rationalist mainstream theories towards a more cross-fertilising, pluralistic methodological toolbox able to explain the dynamics governing a ‘world of regions’.