Changes in the Theories of Regionalism

Regionalism as a manifestation of international cooperation began in Europe after the Second World War, but this spread gradually to other geographical regions including the Latin America and Southeast Asia.New regionalism differs from old regionalism in some respects including agency, the motivation of the agency, as well as direction and scope of cooperation and integration. Since there is a close interrelationship between theory and practice especially with respect to the experience of European integration, this article seeks to explore changes in the theories of regionalism in a response to the change in the process of regionalism. Such changes have been manifested in the theorization on regional studies in a way that the presumptions of the existing regionalism theories have been revised and on the other hand new regionalism theories have been devised which are based on different meta-theory foundations.