The Presentation dives into the fundamental ideas of state groupings, why they exist and what the future holds for them.

1. Sensitivity: Internal
STATE GROUPINGS AND REGIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS – HISTORY AND
FUTURE Mobolaji Awe

2. Contents
1 Introduction 3
2
The Evolution of State Groupings and Regional
Organizations
4
3
Why States Coalesce into Groupings and Regional
Blocs
5
4 Examples and Functions 10
5 The Future of State Groupings 11

3. 1.0 Introduction
• The end of the Cold War and the reunification of the world economy have fueled
debate on the future shape of world order. Many of the changes that have taken place
since then appear contradictory. The marked trend towards globalization and the
creation of a more interconnected world economy and world society has led to the
erosion of the power of nation states to govern their economies, and the rise of new
forms and agencies of global governance.
• At the same time there has been a substantial regionalization of economic activity
and the strengthening of regionalist projects launched by core states or groups of
states. The hopes that had been briefly expressed after 1991 for a new world order
which would transcend the conflicts of the past were dashed after the events of 9/11
brought awareness of new perils and new insecurities, and the application by the
United States and its allies of a new security doctrine and the declaration of a new
kind of war, a war on terror.
• This has by essence led to nation states binding more into groups and coalitions of
common interest, be it political, economic or military (Tello, 1989).

4. 2.0 THE EVOLUTION OF STATE GROUPINGS AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
• It is worthy of note that, security concerns are not the only reasons or history why
nations states form groupings or blocs of common interests.
• Many of the reasons are largely for political, economic, or humanitarian reasons.
The emergence of a new world order post-World War II resulted in a diplomatic
realignment of most nations in international relations. It also marked the beginning of
the cold war which lasted forty years.
• This realignment brought about the division of the world to the East, West and
non-aligned nations. The eastern bloc found representation in the Soviet Union and its
allies, while the collective West featured the United States, Western Europe and its
transatlantic alliance.
• With this, the multiplication of regional organizations and state groupings, became
inevitable. The formation of the League of Nations post-World war I and the United
Nations post-World War II is another watershed moment that solidified the legitimacy
of a collective international system.

5. 3.0 WHY STATES COALESCE INTO GROUPINGS AND REGIONAL BLOCS
• As pointed out above, there are many reasons why nation states coalesce into
blocs or regional organizations. Many of the reasons are either economic, political or
military in nature. But also, there are other factors that accelerated the growth and
multiplication of these organizations. A few of those include:
1. Quest for a liberal order championed by a borderless world e.g the Transnational
economic actors, multinational companies, multinational non-profit organizations.
2. Globalization – Examples include the United Nations Organization, World Trade
Organization etc.
3. Geographical reality or Continental proximity e.g the European Union, African
Union, ASEAN,
4. Political agenda and Economic cohesion – European Union, I2U2, QUAD Grouping
5. Military necessity or security concerns – North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
Warsaw Pact
6. Humanitarian causes or natural factors – Rise of the INGOs

6. 3.1 Borderless World Order and Globalization
• A cosmopolitan global economy, in which states wither away, and a benign global
governance is instituted through markets and democracy. The division of the world
into protectionist spheres of influence and rival civilizations controlled by a few great
powers has been the history of the evolution of regional organizations. The popular
belief among analysts in the 21st century is that this way of conceiving the
international state system has to be rethought because the idea of territorial
sovereignty no longer captures the contemporary nature of political rule (Ruggie,
1993).
• The rethinking has been gathering pace since the 1970s. It has produced extensive
literature around the new trends of globalization and regionalization, raising the
question of whether the era of the nation state is finally over. The nation state has
been declared an anachronism, facing forces which it can no longer control. A global
economy is emerging, dominated by new actors, such as transnational companies,
banks and NGOs. States are increasingly subordinate and reactive.
• And all these were as a result of a new school of thought that championed a new
world order where the world become a more globalized village with little border
frictions. This was done with the intention of facilitating more trade, democratic and
liberalized cultures.

7. 3.2 Geographical Reality and Regionalism
• According to Zysman (1996), the new global economy has regional and national
foundations and a school of thought well champions this with evidence.
• Politics and the state remain of vital importance to the way in which the global
economy develops and to the institutional and cultural variety within it. Far from
globalization sweeping away all political structures, it is creating new ones.
• The political response to globalization has been the setting up of new structures
and new projects. The emerging economic geography is regional rather than global,
and a distinctive aspect of the emerging world order is the creation or consolidation of
regionalist projects (NAFTA in the Americas, the EU in Europe and ASEAN in Southeast
Asia).
• Critical analysts often ask if they are compatible with globalization, even steps
towards it, or do they foreshadow a turn away from the cosmopolitan world economy
and a return to closed, antagonistic regional blocs? The latter view has its roots in
realist perspectives in international relations, both liberal and Marxist. At its heart is a
pessimistic assessment of the workings of the international state system. Left to
themselves, states will be single-minded and ruthless in the pursuit of their security;
the normal state of international relations is conflict (Telo, 1989).

8. 3.3 Military Necessity and Security Guarantees
• Writing in the 1940s, E. H. Carr analyzed how the world order sustained by British
hegemony in the nineteenth century had fallen apart in the twentieth.
• The United States strengthened their hold over the American continents. Great
Britain created a sterling bloc and laid the foundations of a closed economic system.
Germany reconstituted Mittel-Europa and pressed forward into the Balkans. Soviet
Russia developed its vast territories into a compact unit of industrial and agricultural
production. Japan attempted the creation of a new unit of ‘Eastern Asia’ under
Japanese domination.
• Such was the trend towards the concentration of political and economic power in
the hands of six or seven highly organized units, round which lesser satellite units
revolved without any appreciable independent motion of their own. (Carr, 1946: 230)
• Carr analyzed the trend towards regional blocs in terms of power politics,
distinguishing between military, economic and ideological forms of power, and
interpreted world politics as a struggle for power between rival states. Classical
Marxism reached similar conclusions in its analysis of the formation of regional blocs
in the 1930s (Sweezy, 1942; Brewer, 1990).

9. 3.0 WHY STATES COALESCE INTO GROUPINGS AND REGIONAL BLOCS
• On the backdrop of this, worthy of note is also the creation of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) post-World War II in April 1949. This further lends
credence to the truth already known that nations will do anything to secure their
interest in international relations, especially if the security or existence of such nations
are threatened, forgoing individualism and isolationism to form coalitions of common
defense, provided that produces security guarantees of any kind. Mirroring the
formation of NATO is formation of the Warsaw Pact by the former Soviet Union in
response to the existence of NATO and to counter the organization’s influence in
Europe.

10. 4.0 EXAMPLES AND FUNCTIONS
• State groupings and regional organizations mostly take the form of
Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs). The Harvard Law School noted that “Since
the creation of the UN and NATO, IGOs have become essential actors in the
international community. Additionally, as many IGOs, such as the UN and the EU, have
the ability to make rules and exercise power within their member countries, their
global impact continues to increase”.
• IGOs cover multiple issues and involve governments from every region of the
world. Some prominent IGOs include:
1. United Nations, which replaced the League of Nations.
2. The Universal Postal Union - The Universal Postal Union, founded in 1874, is
currently a specialized agency of the UN.
3. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
4. The European Union (EU)
5. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
6. The African Development Bank (ADB)
7. The World Trade Organization (WTO).

11. 5.0 THE FUTURE OF STATE GROUPINGS AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
• Analysts have often reflected on the future of regional organizations and state
groupings and given different opinions across the spectrum. Some ask the
question, “If the world is not facing a return to regional blocs, what explains the
recent growth of regionalism and how far is it compatible with globalization?”
• One of the problems is the different levels of analysis at which these concepts
operate. Regionalism is a type of state project which can be distinguished from
other types of state project such as globalism. Globalization and regionalization
are not state projects.
• State projects like regionalism typically seek to accelerate, to modify, or
occasionally to reverse the direction of social change which processes like
globalization and regionalization represent. In practice, regionalism as a set of
state projects intersects with globalization.
• The relationship between the two has come into particularly sharp focus with the
end of the Cold War. The global economy in the 1990s developed not two but
three cores: North America, the European Union and East Asia. (Telo, 1989) No
single pattern has become established. What they all share, however, is a
commitment to open regionalism; policy is directed towards the elimination of
obstacles to trade within a region, while at the same time minimizing trade
barriers to the rest of the world.

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