Overlapping Regionalism in Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe Compared

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In the aftermaths of WWII and the Cold War, states have intensified multilateral collaboration and increasingly cooperated with states in their neighborhood. Today there are more than 70 ROs in all parts of world. When ROs share member states and policy competences, we speak of overlapping regionalism. While a comparative regionalism research agenda has been emerging recently, overlapping regionalism has not yet received much scholarly attention. The phenomenon of overlapping regionalism is widespread and important, not in the least since ROs’ policies and rules can be incompatible and might redue RO effectiveness. This project contributes towards filling gaps in our knowledge of overlapping regionalism in respect to three research questions: How has overlapping regionalism evolved over time and space? Why and when does overlapping regionalism occur and increase? How do states react to overlapping regionalism and does this affect the effectiveness of ROs? We answer these questions by compiling a novel and unique database (1945-2015), developing a set of hypotheses on the basis of a comprehensive theoretical framework, and analyzing drivers and consequences of overlapping regionalism with advanced methods.