New regionalism and regional integration: the role of national institutions

Abstract

This article focuses, first, on the under-explored issues of new regionalism: its subnational level and transnational regional cooperation as an initial stage of new regionalism. Second, it analyses the development of new regionalism between a country in regime transition (Russia in the 1990s) and stable democratic actors (in Europe). Third, it addresses the question of whether European integration contributes to new regionalism outside Europe's geographic borders. Ther regions chosen for this analysis are the 89 constituent units of Russia. Such variables as historical legacies, regime transition as domestic context, and the European integration as an international context all remain stable for the 89 units of analysis. Thus, the research design allows one to distinguish other potential variables that may be significant in the development of new regionalism. Given that Russia is located on both the European and Asian parts of the Eurasian continent, the research design also permits the testing of the hypothesis that regional integration and new regionalism are interconnected across Eurasia.