A New Theoretical Challenge — Regionalism and Institutional Change: The Cases of East Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter analyses the asymmetric interdependence between international centres of decision-making in the context of globalisation. It provides comparison between two opposing regionalisation processes — in East Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa. Transnational companies aim for long-term success through technical efficiency and competitiveness, while individuals and workers tend to seek security through social structures such as the family, national, ethnic or cultural networks, etc. Different cases of successful integration and co-operation among developing countries have been observed in the past, modelled in most instances on the European Union (EU). The increase in trade among Asian nations can be explained by natural proximity and gravity effects resulting from the overwhelming economic growth of Japan and its neighbours. The independence of several African countries brought a ‘balkanisation’ process which increased the external vulnerability of the world’s most fragile subcontinent. The regionalisation processes encountered in these two parts of the world are manifestly different.