Crisis and Institutional Change in Regional Integration (Routledge Studies on Challenges, Crises and Dissent in World Politics) - Softcover

"This up-to-date snapshot of European, Latin American and Asian regional integration is informed by a theoretical framing that touches the most important bases in the field of comparative regional studies. This book is a very useful and very readable addition to an important area of world politics and a vibrant field of scholarship." - Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter Professor, Jr. of International Studies, Cornell University, USA.

"Are regional organisations in crisis, or are they a crucial part of the solution to addressing the challenges of contemporary crises? Saurugger and Terpan have assembled an impressive range of expertise to analyse the relationship between regionalism and crisis-response in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The result is a highly topical volume which is an important contribution to the burgeoning literature on comparative regionalism." - Thomas Christiansen, Maastricht University, the Netherlands.

Comparative regional integration has met with increasing interest over the last twenty years with the emergence or reinforcing of new regional dynamics in the EU, NAFTA, MERCOSUR and ASEAN.

This volume systematically and comparatively analyses the reasons for regional integration and stalemate in European, Latin American and Asian regional integration. It examines whether regional integration systems change in crisis periods, or more precisely in periods of economic crises, and why they change in different directions. Based on a neo-institutionalist research framework and rigorously comparative research design, the individual chapters analyse why financial and economic crises lead to more or less integrated systems and which factors lead to these institutional changes. Specifically it addresses institutional change in regional integration schemes, power relations between member states and the institutions in different policy domains, and change in individual or collective citizens’ attitudes towards regional integration. Adopting an actor-centred approach, the book highlights which regional integration schemes are influenced by economic and financial crises and how to explain this.

This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and policy specialists in regional integration, European Politics, International Relations, and Latin American and Asian studies.