In order to bypass these problems, the protocol of the Comité Permanent Consultatif du Maghreb (CPCM), which also included Libya, was signed in Tunis on 11 October 1964 (Rulleau 1991: 547; Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 115- 116). The CPCM tried to meet three urgent economic challenges: (1) to develop horizontal exchanges with harmonization of customs policies; (2) to harmonize the policies of the member-countries in the fields of industry, mines, energy, transport, and telecommunications; and (3) to coordinate the positions of the different members with regard to the EEC (Rulleau 1991: 547). Around 20 different committees were created within various sectors such as transport, communications, employment, work, tourism, and education (Rulleau 1991: 547). Despite some positive developments, the achievements of the CPCM remained modest due to low economic inter-exchange and finally most of the agreements were signed separately from the bilateral premises. Instead of negotiating together with the EEC, each state did its own agreements with the EEC also from bilateral premises (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 118; Rulleau 1991: 547). In the mid-1970s, the relations between Algeria and Morocco suffered a heavy blow when Morocco occupied the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, which strained even further the modest sub-regionalism in the Maghreb.

 The de-escalation of the rivalries enabled a rapprochement between the King of Morocco, Hassan II, and the President of Algeria, Chadli Bendjedid, and was followed by normalization of relations between the countries after the meeting in February 1983, though the war in Western Sahara still had a strong impact on their relations (Santucci 1985: 402). Algeria and Tunisia signed Le Traité de Fraternité et de Concorde in March 1983, and Mauritania was included in the agreement in December of the same year (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 120). This so-called Tunis Axis was thought to be a step closer towards the Great Arab Maghreb, though Libya's entry was prevented due to a border dispute with Algeria (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 120-122). Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi then turned to Morocco, giving its support to Western Sahara and stopping arms deliveries to the Sahrawi independence movement, Polisario. Morocco promised to support Libya in Chad, where Qaddafi was supporting numerous factions against the government, and they established the Arab African Union (AAU), which also aimed at the unification of the Maghreb (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 122; Balta 1990: 231).

 In 1987, Algeria and Libya were able to resolve their disputes and Libya again pledged its full support for Algerian policies in Western Sahara (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 123). In addition, after the long-time president of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba, was removed by Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the relations between the two countries moved towards rapprochement, paving the way for the creation of the AMU two years later (Albareda and Barba 2011: 13). The final push came from the meeting between Bendjedid and Hassan II in Morocco in February 1989, at which topics such as bilateral cooperation and the construction of an oil pipeline from Algeria via Morocco to Europe were discussed. Continuously weak intra-trade provided the impetus to push forward a joint economic union. In addition, the integration of the northern Mediterranean in the EEC strengthened the pursuits for more efficient economic cooperation.

 According to Paul Balta, the strengthening of Islamist movements, the international economic crisis that made energy prices soar, the democratic challenges related to state governance, demographic challenges and the unemployment of the youth, and integration in Europe further speeded the Maghrebin integration during the end of the 1980s (Balta 1990, 237-243). Before taking a closer look at the functioning of the AMU and the factors behind the development of sub-regionalism in Maghreb, the field of regional studies will be examined, and some of its general arguments and assumptions will be challenged through the comparative regionalism-related body of literature.

## **5.3. Regionalism within a multiplex world order**

 Regional studies are often considered as a fragmented field of study consisting of various theoretical frameworks with context-based emphasis on various concepts and methodologies (Sbragia 2008: 39; Söderbaum 2015: 5). Perspectives and connotations fluctuate in relation to political, economic, and cultural factors overlapping within the discussions on globalization, assumptions on security, and on history at large. Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (2016: 3- 4) show in *The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism* that, based on searches within Google Books, more than half of the published works deal with European integration during 1950 and 2015. Therefore, European integration has formed the central body of literature and norms for regional studies in general. This is not, of course, surprising because European integration can be considered in many ways as a successful and multi-phenomenal process in the larger context of world history. However, within the developing multiplex world order, it is ever necessary to approach critically various dominant Eurocentric assumptions whether related to regional studies or social sciences in general (Acharya and Buzan 2010; Hobson 2012).

 In the 1940s, David Mitrany (1943) promoted the importance of regionalization within the functionalist framework. He argued that fruitful cooperation could be achieved within the regional context if it was possible to bypass the direct interests of the nation-states. In the 1950s, Karl Deutsch and his coresearchers stated that those regional communities that shared similar beliefs and values were able to avoid military conflicts (Deutsch *et al.* 1957). The traditional conceptualization of regionalization springs from the definition of Joseph N. Nye: "a limited number of States linked together by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence" (Nye 1965: vii). Meanwhile Ernst B. Haas (1958) mapped in his neo-functionalist view supranational governance through accommodation of political groups and institutions which could be achieved within the integration of different multiplex sectors (Söderbaum 2015: 11; Haas 1958: 301).

 Since then, multiple definitions on regionalization have been conceptualized (e.g., Mattli 1999; Katzenstein 2005; Carpenter 2008; Acharya 2012; Söderbaum 2015). The nascent and still relatively undefined body of literature forming comparative regional studies challenges and aims to broaden interpretations related to processes of regionalization regarding the aforementioned regional studies (Sbragia 2008; De Lombaerde *et al.* 2010; Acharya 2012; Mattheis 2017). Amitav Acharya has argued that regionalism cannot be understood as an exclusively "European" or "Western" idea, whether from the historical or contemporary perspective (Acharya 2016: 109). Similarly, he highlights the need to increase knowledge about non-European experiences and processes of

 regionalization. At best, this could mean a way out from the reductive universal understanding of EU-centered modelling and a critical approach to its normative and value-based worldviews, opening the path for more multiplex perspectives regarding the historical development of these processes from philosophic-constructivist accounts.

 Therefore, Acharya proposes expansion of the concept of regionalization from questions that dominated the post-World War II regional theorizing in order to obtain more space to reflect on the "multiple and global heritage" of regional processes (Acharya 2016: 111-112). Acharya proposes eight expanding points:

 Before going further with the adoption of the above-mentioned configurations, I would like to add four key elements that are necessary, according to Adrià Albareda and Oriol Barba, to determine the development of sub-regional processes in general, and in the context of North Africa and the Middle East in

 4 Countries that are able to exercise their influence at a global scale.

 particular (Albareda and Barba 2011: 7). The regional process in the Maghreb can be defined as a sub-regionalism that integrates institutions, leadership, agenda, and external factors. With regard to the regional processes in the Maghreb from the twentieth century onwards, these four aspects are contemplated within the following separate sections in the context of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). Their impacts are reflected in the AMU's processes, emergence, and failure to function efficiently.

 Following Acharya's proposals, seven elements were chosen which have been adapted within the textual analysis and combined with the four key elements set out by Albareda and Barba. These are: (1) the Great Powers' spheres of influence; (2) approaches to conflict management; (3) expressions of cultural identity and autonomy; (4) platforms for advancing decolonization and national liberation; (5) sites of resistance to Great Power intervention; (6) efforts to promote economic development and political stability: and (7) signposts of fragmentation of the global liberal order into competing strategic or economic blocks. These were chosen according to their relevance in the Maghrebin context. A framework for the suppression of nationalism and war through economic and political integration was excluded because it is only relevant to the EU. Finally, these components were integrated in each section according to their contexts, where they are useful in the analysis. The analysis will start by reflecting on the institutional framework related to the AMU and its member-states in general.

## **5.4. Institutions and the AMU**

 According to Albareda and Barba (2011: 10), institutions that are central to regional cooperation are formal agreements, organizations, bodies, and rules that are composed to maintain the process of cooperation. It is also relevant whether institutionalization takes place from bottom up or top down. Albareda and Barba argue that a "low degree of institutionalization, especially at the first stages, is better in order to achieve tangible results" (Albareda and Barba 2011: 7). The creation of the AMU was in many ways a typical top-down regionalism process, where the major negotiations took place at high-level meetings.

 Börzel and Risse (2016: 7) differentiate between regionalism and regionalization. Contrary to what Mitrany's functionalist and Haas's neo-functionalist approaches indicate, regionalism does not necessarily need to be a top-down process. Regionalism can take place from the bottom-up as well, generating a process that Börzel and Risse (2016: 8) call regionalization. The five Maghreb

 countries that joined the AMU, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia, were far from being sustainable democracies at the end of the 1980s. They were ruled by more or less authoritarian regimes led by strong leaders, whether they were republics or a monarchy like in Morocco. These polities did not leave much space for the constructive development of civil society.

 The AMU institution process started with the setting up of the Inter-Maghreb Commission (IMC) to gather proposals and identify tools that could help with the building of unity (Aghrout and Sutton 1990: 134). The first meeting that gathered the leaders from each member-country (President Chadli Bendjedid of Algeria, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, President Maaouya Ould Did'Ahmed Taya of Mauritania, King Hassan II of Morocco, and President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia) took place in Zeralda, Algeria, in June 1988. Algeria made an important concession at the meeting by promising to exclude the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) from the process (Balta 1990: 244). A High Commission was created incorporating five specialized commissions aiming to organize meetings in the capitals of each country in September 1988.

 Paul Balta (1990: 244-249) has written about the functioning of the commissions that led to the successful creation of the AMU. The Commission of Finance and Customs held a meeting in Rabat, Morocco, where the discussion concentrated on harmonizing and decreasing customs barriers, financial and customary integration, coordination of finance policies, and ways to fund common Maghrebin action processes (Balta 1990: 244-245). The Commission of Economy held a meeting in Algiers and reflected on ways to decrease the nutrition dependency. The program aimed to develop food security in four steps: free trade zones, harmonization of tariffs, creation of a common market, and harmonization of economic policies. The meeting of the commission related to organic and structural questions took place in Tripoli, Libya, targeting possibilities for coordinated foreign policy conduct and initiating plans to design a common flag, identity cards, and common organizations. The commission also looked at structures within the union through the creation of a council that would involve the heads of state meeting twice a year to take unanimous decisions; an executive body led by the general secretary; a Maghrebin parliament; and a tribunal. The Commission of Culture and Education met in Nouakchott, Mauritania, with the aim of unifying educational systems across the membercountries. The Commission of Social Affairs met in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, to discuss the free circulation of people within the AMU.

 The inaugural meeting of the AMU took place on 15 February 1989 in Marrakech, Morocco, though last-minute differences almost prevented it from happening (Balta 1990: 247-248). The heads of state of Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia signed the treaty instituting the Arab Maghreb

 Union. The treaty contained further decisions about institutional bodies and the future agenda. The agreed institutional bodies were:

 The creation of the AMU was hailed in multiple research papers and in the media as a success; it was a long-awaited turn in the development of intra-Maghrebin relations. The conflict of Western Sahara was transferred to the aegis of the UN with the promise of the organization of a referendum for the destiny of the Sahrawi people. The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) began its peace-keeping operations in 1991 to keep a watch on the ceasefire between the Moroccan forces and the Polisario.

## **5.5. Lack of regional leadership: Intra-political challenges**

 Despite the promising start of the AMU, socio-political factors soon froze the project. Decreased energy prices and the liberalization of Algeria's economy under President Bendjedid led to the October Riots of 1988, and after failed democratic reforms, the situation in Algeria led to a political crisis and eventually the civil war of 1992-2000. In 1994, Algeria accused Morocco of hosting Islamic guerrilla groups, and it closed its borders. The conflict in Western Sahara remained at an impasse and the negotiations between Morocco and the Polisario did not go any further.

 The treaty instituting the Arab Maghreb Union, signed on 17 February 1989 in Marrakech, Morocco, comprised many statements relating to

 initiatives that were supposed to be promoted within the AMU. These elements can be approached through the propositions put forward by Acharya in the context of comparative regionalism. Unlike regional studies often suggests, based on regionalism in Europe which stresses the benefits of cultural and value-based homogeneity, political and socioeconomic factors seem to bypass the common culture and value framework in the Maghreb.

 The treaty states, for example, "Having faith in the strong ties based on common history, religion and language that unite the peoples of the Arab Maghreb Union, […]."

 The political disagreements clearly took precedence over common culture and history and was followed by gradual paralysis within the AMU. However, it makes the case interesting because failed regionalism may provide new insights for regionalism studies and help find solutions for further initiatives like the AMU. Acharya (2016: 111-112) delineates approaches to conflict management, where regionalism is understood more broadly than as just an alternative to the universalism of the UN. It is an interesting element within the context of the AMU. The Marrakech treaty talks of peace and stability, saying the AMU aims:

> […] to acquire a specific weight allowing it to make an effective contribution to world balance, to the consolidation of peaceful relations within the international community and to the establishment of security and stability in the world […].

 While the AMU clearly sought to promote peaceful relations in connection with the international community, it also wanted to contribute to the balance of power in the world. While universalism regarding the UN is not mentioned, the conflict of Western Sahara was moved to the UN. What was then meant by "contribution to world balance"? In the context of the Cold War, it meant keeping away from the competition between the US and the Soviet Union, but can the statement be understood within the contemporary context as a desire for a multiplex world order as opposed to the US-led hegemonic liberal world order within Acharya's "signposts of fragmentation of the global liberal order into competing strategic or economic blocks" (2016: 111-112)? Within comparative regionalism, it is possible to present such questions, not as alternatives to the assumed universalism of the UN, but as phenomena that can seal in multiplex layers at the same time. It is often forgotten that when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948, half the world's population was living under the yoke of colonial structures. Nevertheless, the AMU treaty adds two interesting paragraphs relating to the self-identification of the Maghreb:

 Being inspired by the glorious feats of our ancestors who contributed to the radiance of the Arabo-Islamic civilization and to the enrichment of cultural and intellectual Rebirth which gave the best support to a common struggle for liberty and dignity […]. And as we stress our adherence to our spiritual values, our historical genuineness, our openness to others and our attachment for the prin-

 ciples of international ethics […].

 Therefore, the AMU treaty clearly emphasizes the genuineness of the memberstates' socio-historical culture, and when referring to international ethics, it does not mention the UN or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These formulations fit well with Acharya's formulation (2016: 111-112), where he stresses "expressions of cultural identity and autonomy" related to various panmovements (pan-Americanism, pan-Arabism, pan-Africanism, and so forth). In addition, the AMU clearly presents itself among "platforms for advancing decolonization and national liberation," when stating:

> Being convinced that the advent of [a] unified Arab Maghreb will consolidate the struggle of the Palestinian Arab People for liberation and the recovery of their inalienable national rights […].

 The Maghrebin countries all experienced colonial rule, but bringing up the issue of Palestine was most probably directed at a Middle-Eastern audience and pan-Arabism. Simultaneously, the AMU treaty does not cease to repeat "efforts to promote economic development and political stability," as Acharya (2016: 111-112) puts it in the context of comparative regionalism. From the beginning, the AMU was planned to increase economic integration among the Maghrebin states and homogenize their economic performances:

> […] would reinforce the existing relations and provide them with the appropriate ways and means to gradually proceed toward achieving a more comprehensive integration among themselves […]. […] the setting up of common rules embodying the effective solidarity among its components and ensuring their economic and social development […].

 The competition of the two strong regional forces, Algeria and Morocco, nevertheless put an end to the possibility of advancing the objectives drawn up in the treaty. The AMU refused Egypt's membership request in 1994, which could have, according to some political analysts, brought about balance within the larger regionalism in North Africa (Albareda and Barba 2011: 14).

## **5.6. An agenda full of internal and intra-power struggles**

 Albareda and Barba stress that "economic oriented, technical, practical and progressive cooperation can boost sub-regionalism" (2011: 7). Various themes and issues ought to be discussed among governments and regional institutions (Albareda and Barba 2011: 11). Economic questions also relate to disciplinary perspectives and definitions of concepts and connotations, as Alberta Sbragia (2008: 37) points out, while arguing that economists consider preferential trade agreements (PTAs) to be synonymous with regionalism. The economy plays a significant role in the motivation for the creation of the AMU. However, here, regionalism is understood more widely than just PTAs.

 The Maghrebin states struggle with multiple economic challenges. The AMU wanted to achieve a customs union by 1995 and a single market by 2000 (Albareda and Barba 2011: 14). The Maghrebin countries would have benefited from such economic integration, which would have meant the creation of a regional market of over 100 million inhabitants "with an average income [of] about 4000 dollars per capita in nominal terms and about 12000 in purchasingpower-parity terms" (Kireyev *et al.* 2019: vii). According to some sources, the Maghreb loses approximately US\$530 billion every year due to trade restrictions and other legislative barriers (Conan and Schiller 2013: 6). The intratrade within the Maghreb is one of the weakest in the world (Ait Hamza 2017). According to the latest International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on the Maghreb: "The share of intra-regional trade is less than 5% of the Maghreb countries' total trade, substantially lower than in all other regional trading blocs around the world" (Kireyev *et al.* 2019: vii). In the context of macroeconomics, the Maghreb states represent different economic structures. In general, it is possible to depict Algeria and Libya (in turmoil since 2011) as rentier states due to their significant oil and gas resources and the great percentage these reserves add to their total revenue. Morocco and Tunisia have been more dependent on agriculture and tourism. Nevertheless, in recent years, Morocco and Tunisia have been more successful in diversifying their export volumes.

 The European Union (EU), the most important single trading partner in the area, has implemented European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) agreements with its southern neighbors in order to foster stability, security, and prosperity (European External Action Service 2016). Unfortunately, these normative actions invariably contain neoliberal economic structural build-up recommendations close to the ideals of the Bretton Woods system. Too often, various Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and liberalization and privatization measures have been destructive for the Third World economies (Harvey 2007). Another important trading partner for the Maghrebin countries is the United States,

 which has, among others, free trade agreements with Morocco as well as multiple geopolitical interests in the region.

 China has also recently increased its imports and other economic activities in the area (Djallel 2018). Trade relations have witnessed significant progression in recent years, and China's exports in particular have increased, while imports have stayed modest (Lafargue 2018). Since Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Maghrebin states have joined the BRI one after another. An important harbor called El Hamdania, near the town of Cherchell, will be constructed in Algeria under the BRI, and it is targeted for completion by 2024 (PortSEurope 2017).

 From an institutional point of view, the Maghreb is part of various multilateral institutions such as the UN, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Arab League (AL), the Council of Arab Economic Unity (CAEU), the Union for the Mediterranean, and the AMU. Today, in addition to Algerian-Moroccan rivalry, the biggest obstacles for economic integration in the region are the civil war in Libya, civic unrest in Tunisia, and ethnic conflicts in the Sahel area, all of which have an impact on the security of the Maghreb as well. However, can strained regionalism and regionalization speed up more efficient multilateralism? Is it even possible to assume that there exists a correlation between the two in the first place?

 Parag Khanna (2016: 5-6) depicts the contemporary world's infrastructure formation from dispersal into connectography. Therefore, processes of regionalization and multilateralism are only dimensions within the global field of action consisting of nodes, where the Great Powers, cities, stateless multinational enterprises, and virtual communities operate. While it seems that regionalism is failing in the Maghreb, the states in the region cannot avoid being integrated into larger connectographies, where borders instigate new meanings, and cooperation, trade, politics, and security are ever less defined by geographical limitations.

 A major milestone in the contemporary Maghrebi security environment was the 2011 uprisings, often glossed in mainstream media as "the Arab Spring". These uprisings, spreading from Tunis, raised hopes of democratic change, better governance, and wider political participation, but ended in pseudo-reforms, the continuation of authoritarian governance, and civil wars (Zoubir 2017). In general, it is necessary to approach the Maghreb from a combination of social, economic, and political perspectives that offer possibilities to contemplate societal changes and security challenges more specifically.

 While Algeria and Morocco stayed relatively calm during the 2011 uprisings, they both suffer from similar social challenges as the rest of the countries in North Africa: rapid population growth and a "youth bulge," youth unemployment, marginalization, and lack of prospects, oppression, corruption, and

 rapid neoliberal economic programs. These factors have been considered as key elements in the dissatisfaction of the inhabitants of the region. In order to develop the Maghrebin societies, there should be redistribution of economic wealth from more equal premises in order to guarantee necessary basic services in health and education.

 "The Youth bulge" is a major social challenge which requires urgent coordinated action. About two-thirds of the Maghreb population are under 30 years of. While a young population can be seen in a positive light as a major potential labor force (Assaad and Roudi-Fahimi 2007), it simultaneously forms a dangerous breeding ground for marginalization and possible radicalization of the youth (Zoubir 2017). In general, the youth in North Africa suffers from "waithood," – the time spent waiting to achieve a full state of adulthood through work, securing housing, and establishing a family. Waithood results from demographic pressures, unequally distributed income, static institutions, as well as rigid social norms (Salehi-Isfahani and Dhillon 2008).

 When the youth is not allowed opportunities to develop themselves professionally and establish themselves socially, they may end up being socially marginalized. Radicalization, migration, terrorism, and criminal activities can be nurtured by this frustration. It is an urgent need for North African countries to engage their youth in decision-making processes through coherent policy-making (Maïche *et al.* 2017). This necessitates the integration of women and the tackling of corruption and nepotism, which are widespread in the area. These premises would enable the bottom-up regionalization that is necessary to achieve cohesive regionalism in the Maghreb. As Darrat and Pennathur (2002) have shown, empirical results further suggest that Maghrebin macroeconomics (especially in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) are integratable, and therefore the failure of the AMU can be traced back to political disputes.

## **5.7. External and foreign interests**

 Finally, regionalism cannot be reflected properly without integrating external actors. Albareda and Barba (2011: 7) argue that common external threats can impact positively on sub-regionalism and foster cooperation among states. Therefore, external actors can exert their influence positively or negatively. The AMU treaty includes this clause: "Any aggression directed against one of the member States shall be considered as an aggression against the other member states."

 According to Acharya (2016: 111-112), sites of resistance to Great Power intervention should be stressed as a form of regionalism, and this is especially true of the Maghreb. During the past centuries, the region has witnessed the presence of several spheres of influence. Algeria was colonized by the French for 132 years from 1830 to 1962. Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia were subordinated as French protectorates, while Libya was colonized by Italy, and Western Sahara by Spain. Decolonizing attempts through independence movements to create unity integrated vigorous endeavors of freedom and self-determination within the economic, political, and social spheres (Said 1993: 275, 299). Meanwhile, the former colonial powers strove to limit political, economic, and social latitude and impact to further the continuation of dependency relations through renewed instruments of global governance (Hall 1999: 66; Manzo 2014: 332–333). As Acharya proposes, "platforms for advancing decolonization and national liberation" should also be understood in relation to regionalism (Acharya 2016: 111-112).

 Martinez (2006: 6) quotes Roger le Tourneau as saying in the 1960s that:

 The Idea of North African unity […] was initially born as a reaction to French control over the three countries of the Maghreb: before becoming a constructive idea, it manifested itself mainly as a defense reflex, as the sum of a triple common feeling of French domination […]. The advocates of Maghreb unity will have to be patient and tenacious in order to succeed […]. Otherwise North Africa will risk going through the same old problems, namely, internal fights, economic and technical stagnation.

 Conflicts can take place at four different levels: local, national, regional, and international. Typical societal upheavals are local and national conflicts related to terrorism and internal disputes, such as the recent terrorist attacks in Tunisia, uprisings in the mountainous Rif area in Morocco, continuous civil war in Libya as a result of the invasion by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and political discontent in Algeria. The recent popular uprisings in Algeria could lead to more complex regional settings, while successful peaceful transition of power would enable the strengthening of democracy building and the resultant positive developments. In addition, the ethnic conflict between the Tuareg and the government of Mali has led to a French intervention against extremist Islamist groups benefiting from the power vacuum. More recently, the US has sent military forces to Niger to combat violent Islamist and criminal groups. In 1986, the US bombed the Libyan capital, Tripoli, and the Bab al-Azizia barracks in its suburbs.

 At a regional level, the Western Sahara dispute and competition in the Sahel have increased tensions between Algeria and Morocco. France is Morocco's biggest supporter at the international level and especially within the

 EU. Terrorist organizations operate simultaneously on a regional and international level, leading to continuous French and US military operations in Libya, thereby engaging international powers in North Africa. At the moment, there does not seem to be much hope for an end to the civil war in Libya as the country hosts various Salafist jihadists groups, brotherhoods, clans, warlords, and other extreme Islamic terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda.

 However, in addition to terrorism, migration and climate change should be taken into account as well when considering external actors. Climate change has had an immense impact on the social, economic, and political stability in North Africa because the Maghreb is highly vulnerable to its consequences, as various reports show (Ahmed 2017; Price 2017). Climate change could be a uniting element when its impacts reach the point where cooperation becomes imperative. Migration, on the other hand, has caused serious internal human despair and challenges to the Maghrebin states as well as to the EU, and may continue to strengthen radicalization tendencies in the future. Social development in the Maghreb is directly connected to immigration-related issues.

### **5.8. Conclusion**

 In this chapter, the factors that prevent the development of sub-regionalization in the Maghreb have been processed within the context of the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU). The attempt has been to extend the analysis beyond the traditional discipline of regional studies, and to stress the relatively new, but still undefined approach of comparative regional studies that adapts context-related elements more flexibly within the purview of analysis. Disconnecting from traditional regional studies, often developed within specific European contexts, can enable deeper theoretical analysis of socioeconomic processes in the non-European world.

 Political problems seem able to easily override the cultural homogeneity that prevails in the Maghreb. In complete contrast to the Middle-Eastern states, which include various ethnic and religious communities, the Maghrebin countries have a clear majority of Sunni Muslims and only a few competing identities, such as the cultural Amazighity and Islamism, that instigate identity political discrepancies within the states. Therefore, cultural cohesiveness, as a factor, does not seem strong enough to overcome the political disputes and lead to successful sub-regionalization. 150

 Secondly, does the failed regionalism in North Africa promote more efficient multilateralism? To argue that regionalism and multilateralism have a systematic correlation with each other is beyond this study. It is under continuous debate whether, as Jagdish Bhagwati has reflected, the relationship between regionalism and multilateralism leads to "building blocs" or whether it serves as "stumbling blocs" (Bhagwati 1991). However, this case study strengthens the assumption that multilateralism seems to fulfill the empty space left by failed regionalism in the Maghreb. Failed processes of regionalism increase our knowledge regarding regionalization and produce new material for further investigations.

 The Maghrebin states are connected to various multilateral processes (e.g., the African Union, Arab League, Union for the Mediterranean), where their political disagreements are able to be overlooked in order to achieve other interests within a larger multilateral context. This does not mean that such dissensions completely disappear, as the struggle within the African Union has recently showed in the context of Western Sahara. Nevertheless, Morocco's rejoining of the African Union after 33 years indicates that individual states require platforms to advance their interests, especially when regional settings are paralyzed. Algeria and Morocco have similarly been active in developing the Union of the Mediterranean, which opens possibilities for negotiating political, economic, and security related issues as well.

 Meanwhile, the achievement of national socioeconomic self-determination dating back to decolonizing processes continues to solidify in the Maghreb, although national borders are helpless to prevent international phenomena such as mobility, climate change, and terrorism and criminal activities. It seems that weak sub-regionalism forces the Maghrebin states to search for partners from the outside. Traditionally, EU states, and more recently the US, have been external superpowers that maintained leverage in the Maghreb, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union. France and the US maintained close relations, especially with Morocco and Tunisia, while Algeria, though not excluded, sustained a more complex state of affairs with these external powers. Libya, on the other hand, was treated as an outcast.

 Lately, Algeria has been eager to develop its relations with China and has made a move to be connected to the China-led BRI. This project reflects well the contemporary multiplex world order, which integrates elements of multilayered connectivity and forms of processes of production that challenge the traditional role of states as well as the institutions established after World War II. Other Maghrebin states also want to participate in the Chinese initiative, which emphasizes the importance of supply chains even further.

 In November 2018, Morocco showed through political statements its will to improve relations with Algeria. Algeria's response initiated the desire to

 relaunch the AMU. In December 2018, Morocco proposed hosting the seventh meeting of the AMU in Morocco in 2019. The future will show where these latest proposals will lead.

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## **Chapter 6 Coping with the changing world order: The case of Russia1**

## **E. B. Mikhaylenko**

 *Department of International Relations, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia*

## **I. M. Adami**

 *Department of International Relations, Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg, Russia*

## **Abstract**

 The growth and overlap of interregional projects around the world challenge the Russian political elite. In its turn, Russia does not cease to generate its own projects of regional and interregional importance. In the Russian political community, the ability to put forward and promote large geopolitical or geo-economic projects has always been considered one of the main features of a great power (Tsvetov 2017). Now the Great Eurasian Partnership (GEP) project has become a new construct to be explored by the Russian expert community. Putin first introduced that concept in the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on 3 December 2015. Almost three years after the first report on the project, the public space still has not seen a policy document or a public remark at any high level, which describes specifically the substance of or at least a clear format for this new idea. A special project, the Agenda for Eurasia was created with the aim of creating a pool of ideas within the framework of the Valdai Discussion Club. This project is interesting because it demonstrates the search for a new paradigm of region-building and interregion-building in Eurasia.

 The publication was supported by the European Union ERASMUS+ Programme, Jean Monnet, project number 575043-EPP -1 2016-1-RU-EPPJMO-CHAIR. 1

 Although such a paradigm has not yet been conceptualized, some of its outlines can be identified. Firstly, the project demonstrates a deep theoretical elaboration of modern approaches to region-building, including the European experience, with the aim of forming a concept that "will not be based on copying or striving to 'cling' to the East or the West, but on our own ideas and visions" (Bordachev 2017f). Secondly, it is an attempt to learn from the mistakes made in previous region-building exercises in Eurasia and in the post-Soviet space. Thirdly, there is an analysis of the opportunity to utilize "a unique emerging international environment in Eurasia that eliminates the possibility and necessity of an unquestionable hegemon's arrival" (Bordachev 2017a). Nevertheless, the region's uniqueness and long history are often obstacles to understanding commonality and shared values. The overarching purpose of the study presented in this chapter was to answer the question: what is the GEP? Having placed the GEP within different theoretical frameworks of region-building as a first-generation hybrid type, the study has identified the project's main features and challenges according to the Valdai Club's experts and suggested that Russia should disaggregate its interregional aspirations into steps and meanwhile prioritize the Eurasian Economic Union as a base for the creation of the GEP.

**Keywords**: Greater Eurasian Partnership, Interregionalism, Russia, China, Eurasia

## **6.1. Introduction**

 The multiplying and overlapping regional and interregional projects around the world are a challenge for the Russian political elite. In its turn, Russia does not cease to generate projects of regional and interregional importance. Now the Great Eurasian Partnership (GEP) project has become a new construct to be explored by the Russian expert community.

 The idea of forming the Great Eurasian Partnership was first announced in the President's Address to the Federal Assembly on 3 December 2015. During 2016-2018, at various venues and meetings, Russian Federation President Vladimir V. Putin has actively used the concept of the Great Eurasian Partnership, but there is still little clarity about how and with whom this partnership will be built.

 We have identified three main strands of theorizing regarding the GEP, within both Russian and foreign discourse. Initially, the GEP was seen as a

 project that would link the activities of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Then the GEP was associated with the turn of the Russian Federation to the East: a rapprochement of Russia with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes an explanation of the GEP initiative with the idea of the possibility of linking that partnership with the BRI for international cooperation (Tsvetov 2017; Li 2018; Timofeev, Lissovolik, and Filippova 2017; Lukin 2019).

 The second interpretation includes the idea of the Eurasian Economic Partnership as a multilateral institution, starting with a non-preferential Russian-Chinese trade and economic agreement. Subsequently, other countries could participate in this project. It could start with the EAEU countries and then include all of Greater Eurasia. A group of scientists of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under Putin has prepared an analytical framing of the role of the EAEU in the regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific Region (APR). The GEP is considered to be a project aimed at developing trade and economic relations based on the EAEU in the Asia-Pacific Region (Aliev et al. 2018). The number of papers on the GEP as a multilateral project including all institutes in Eurasia led by Russia is seeing a steady rise (Novikov 2018; Alimov 2018).

 The third cluster of ideas includes papers on the role of the Russian Federation in constructing a new regional order in Eurasia, which would compete in some way with the European Union (EU). In the article, "Comprehensive Eurasian Partnership," Entin and Entina try to prove the viability of the project, its relevance, and historical roots (Entin and Entina 2016). Petrovsky (2017) continues the analysis of the concept, determining the interests and possibilities of the Russian Federation in Eurasia. Some works demonstrate the competition between the EU and the EAEU in the shared neighborhood (Korosteleva 2016; Delcour 2015).

 Examining the work of some foreign experts (Zhao 2017; Lewis 2018) who have attempted to identify the Russian aims and ability to build the GEP, we can summarize several challenges for researchers. The first challenge is the terms and abbreviations used to describe the GEP in the official discourse; Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Russian minister of foreign affairs Sergey Lavrov, as well as several researchers, all use distinctly different terms: the All-GEP (Comprehensive Greater Eurasian Partnership), GEP (Greater Eurasian Partnership), and the IEP (Eurasian Partnership Initiative). Secondly, from our point of view, there are at least three approaches which have different interpretations, but are in many cases used as synonymous: Greater Eurasia, Greater Eurasian Partnership, and the modern interpretation of Eurasianism. Third, there is no common shared understanding of the type of integration that is desired. Most politicians and experts do not specify the mechanisms and

 tools for its construction. There is no understanding of what role the EAEU or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) would be expected to play in this "multilevel" or "networking" type of integration. Finally, the number and list of participants of the GEP is constantly changing in both official documents and analytical papers.

 Since there is no official program or strategy document describing this partnership, all analyses are aimed at guessing or predicting what Putin's government plans to build in Eurasia. It is not clear from Putin's speeches what regional project would form the basis for the development of interregional ties – the SCO, the EAEU, or the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The areas of cooperation are not obvious. Which countries and regions will be part of this project? On what principles will it be built? Which tools for building interregional relations will be used? The ideological2 component of the project is not clear either, and that lack of ideological clarity further obscures the previous questions. The answer to *why* Russia is interested in championing a project such as the GEP is what would guide any efforts to answer them.

 Given the fact that the hard interests Russia may have while pushing for the GEP remain arcane, these questions, compounded, demand herculean efforts to answer. In this chapter, therefore, we start breaking ground towards organizing the valuable though scattered thoughts of experts directly involved with the GEP vis-à-vis the collected academic knowledge in terms of regionbuilding. The research question we seek to answer is: what is the GEP? In order to do that, first, we must shed light on the main features and challenges to the GEP according to the expertise of the Valdai Discussion Club. To account for the obstacles posed by the abovementioned ideological void, we shall depart from the basic assumption that Russia is interested in a position of leadership within the emerging world order. This assumption was formulated borrowing from Amitav Acharya, who says, "[…] the growing incidence of inter-regionalism, may introduce a healthy diversity and leadership into the emerging world order instead of the singular dominance of American power or the EU's legalistic and centralized model of cooperation" (2014: 105).

## **6.2. Research design**

 The term Greater Eurasian Partnership is a relatively new term, and expert discussions about how such a partnership should develop are still taking place.

 2 Referring, herein, strictly to the presence of a guiding theory of regionalism.

 With the aim of creating a pool of ideas within the framework of the Valdai Discussion Club (VDC),3 a special project, Agenda for Eurasia, 4 was created. This project is interesting because it demonstrates the search for a new paradigm of region-building and interregion-building in Eurasia. There is no conceptualized paradigm yet, but some of its outlines can be identified.

 The VDC is an expert center that conducts research for the government of the Russian Federation, and President Putin regularly participates in its meetings. The VDC was established in 2004. It is named after Lake Valdai, which is located close to Veliky Novgorod, where the club's first meeting took place. The VDC aims to promote dialogue between Russian and international intellectual elites, and to deliver independent objective scholarly analyses of political, economic, and social developments in Russia and the world. The VDC is a major expert site where Russian and foreign experts meet. It is important to note that representatives of the government of the Russian Federation, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, attend the events of the VDC. Every year special sessions are held in which the President participates. From our point of view, the publications of the VDC are important for understanding modern trends in the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian Federation.

 We have therefore decided to analyze how the experts of this center assess the GEP. To consider the GEP as a project is interesting, as it demonstrates the search for a new paradigm of region-building and interregion-building in Eurasia. We have identified several important issues that are important for understanding the GEP. Firstly, we attempted to define the concepts that VDC representatives operate on, and we used quantitative analysis to find out the main approaches and concepts. Secondly, it is necessary to define what this partnership is per se, and to do so, we sought to develop criteria for analysis using theories of interregionalism.

 This study has limitations. An important limitation is that the GEP is not built yet and is not defined in any way within the framework of official discourse, so our research is also an attempt to determine what the Greater Eurasian Partnership is. Secondly, the analytical and expert communities of the Russian Federation do not, for the most part, produce independent expert research; they practice self-censorship and thus produce materials that echo the official discourse. Thirdly, the international political and economic situations are such that Russia is a country that has been under political and economic sanctions since 2014, which objectively makes it difficult to build any global and interregional projects. Thus, this study is an attempt to analyze the GEP

 3 Valdai Club Foundation. Retrieved 10 October 2018 (http://valdaiclub.com/about/valdai/).

 4 Agenda for Eurasia. Retrieved 10 October 2018 (http://valdaiclub.com/special/agenda-eurasia/).

 via theoretical approaches of interregionalism and it aims to uncover the project's problems.

 Throughout this work, the overarching research tasks were: (1) to place the GEP within the suggested framework of different theories of interregionalism; (2) to determine the challenges to the building of the GEP according to expert discourse and the aforementioned framework, and keeping in mind the results of previous tasks; and (3) to provide recommendations on how Russia can realize the GEP. In the framework of this research, the VDC's expert opinions, event protocols, and reports concerning the Agenda for Eurasia from 2016 to 2018 were analyzed qualitatively. Additionally, given the larger number of texts from Timofei Bordachev, a software-assisted quantitative analysis5 was performed to provide a bird's-eye view of the material.

 The structure goes as follows. In the first part of this article, we lay down the theoretical lens through which the material collected ought to be analyzed. The second part consists of a short description of the quantitative methods and their simplified results. In the third part, which presents the preliminary research outcomes, we synthesize the quantitative and qualitative results and discuss our findings. The conclusion summarizes the findings, the discussion, and points out the challenges to cohesion regarding the different interpretations of the GEP.

## *6.2.1. Interregionalism from a theoretical perspective*

 Interregionalism, from a theoretical point of view, is a complex and controversial approach. Hänggi, Roloff, and Ruland (2006: 4), analyzing the development of interregionalism, note that in the 1990s, an active study of various forms of interregional relations began: mega-regionalism, trans-regionalism, trans-continentalism, inter-continentalism, and pan-regionalism, among others. Nevertheless, there is still no unambiguous understanding of the role that interregionalism plays in the system of international relations.

 In the mid-2000s, numerous papers were devoted to the new phenomenon of interregionalism; seminal works include *Interregionalism and the System of*

 The general corpus is composed of 15 texts. Each text was coded individually with the variables pertinent to the research, such as date and subject. The authors understand the limitations posed by the scarce data to the value of the statistics presented in the analysis. Our ultimate purpose of utilizing such means of dataprocessing was not to provide precise statistical figures, but to illustrate the different ideas exposed in the corpus and their relation to each other within the text itself. 5

  *International Relations* (Hänggi et al. 2006) and *The European Union as a Global Player* (Söderbaum and Van Langenhove 2006). Influenced by these works, Robles (2008) wrote on *The Asia-Europe Meeting*, and Lombarde and Schultz's book (2009), *The EU and World Regionalism - The Makability of Regions in the 21st Century*, was devoted to the policy of the EU and global regionalism. Later, several works on the changes in the contemporary world system and the role of the EU in global governance were published. *Interregionalism and the European Union* by Telò, Fawcett, and Ponjaert (2015) and *The EU, Promoting Regional Integration and Conflict Resolution* by Diez and Tocci (2017) raised the issue of the role of the EU in the changing world, of the instruments of the EU's foreign policy, and the role of the EU in existing international conflicts. Interregionalism as a theoretical approach has entered the scientific discourse and now looks beyond the activities of the EU.

  Interregionalism as a new phenomenon has its own history, dynamics, and peculiarities. Soderbaum and Van Langenhove (2006), in the introduction to their book, *The EU as a Global Player*, offer a theory of three generations of the development of interregionalism. They abandon the evolutionary theory of the development of interregionalism, as it was in the case of the theories of regionalism: old regionalism, new regionalism, etc. They introduce three generations of interregionalism, making it possible to showcase the coexistence of different types of interregional relationships. The first generation of interregionalism is defined as the building of interregional ties in a very limited range of tasks, primarily trade relations. The second generation of interregionalism is more complex, comprehensive, and has various forms of integration, which include political, social, and cultural aspects. A special feature of the third generation is the active outside-regional activity of the region. The region begins to strive for the formation of global international regimes, actively operates in relation to other regions, and cooperates with countries and other actors around the world. Another distinguishing feature of the third generation of interregionalism is its inclusion in solving problems outside its own region and concluding a growing number of agreements and treaties. The EU, according to Soderbaum and Van Langenhove, is an example of the second generation of interregionalism, but it can now be said that the EU is becoming an increasingly important actor in resolving issues outside its own region.

 The ideological dispute over whether interregionalism is a derivative phenomenon from European regionalism as well as whether regionalism is a European phenomenon is still going on. In *The End of the American World Order*  (2014), Acharya offers the concept of "regional worlds," which goes in parallel with theories of the "new regionalism." Since the theories of the new regionalism are part of the overall neoliberal approach, Acharya presupposes the emergence of regions outside the context of hegemonic stability, without

 explicit hegemons, as an answer to local challenges. From Acharya's point of view, interregionalism is an important element of the balance between regionalism and universalism. Even though the EU is a brand of regionalism and many countries and regions emulate its experience and practice, it is impossible to apply this experience unequivocally in different regions. Emerging powers contribute to the formation of the world of regions.

  The inefficiency of the "one-size-fits-all approach" becomes obvious. In *Interregionalism and the European Union* (2015), Telò, Fawcett, and Ponjaert raise the question of what is the current practice of regionalism and interregionalism. Fawcett derives three formulas for building regionalism and interregionalism. The first option, orthodox, involves the construction of regional and interregional relationships based on the flagship experience of the EU. The second is a revisionist option, which questions EU experience and emphasizes the role of other actors and models of region-building. The third model is postrevisionist, which is a synthesis of the previous two options, namely the recognition of the role of the EU as a model of integration, its influence and role in the formation of regions outside Europe, but also the recognition of the importance of other projects, the recognition that the EU is one of many variants of regionalism (Telò et al. 2015: 47-49).

 In a broad sense, interregionalism can be understood as institutionalized multilateral relations between one regional group (region) and another group or a country belonging to another region. Since the relations between two regions are inherently bilateral, as a concept, interregionalism is close to bilateralism. Nevertheless, if we consider interregionalism as a derivative of regionalism, then interregionalism has several distinctive characteristics.

 Firstly, even though interregionalism is a new and independent phenomenon, it cannot be thoroughly considered outside the context of regionalism. Each region, when building its interregional and trans-regional relations, comes to the necessity of choosing its own model for building these relations. In the case of the EU, one could refer to interregionalism driven by the strong economies of the world, and in the case of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and BRICS (the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa grouping), interregionalism becomes the practice of growing economies and emerging powers.

 Secondly, the region initiating interregional relations can have specific reasons for doing so. Aggarwal and Fogarty (2004) identify three factors that condition the building of interregional relations: (1) the continued globalization of the world economy; (2) further uncertainty surrounding the multilateral process of cooperation in the World Trade Organization (WTO); and (3) the need to build rules for conducting international commercial relations (economic logic). The authors take the first two assumptions as given factors and

 elaborate on the third by examining cases of EU-region relations and panning them out with combined pre-set theoretical hypotheses, each focusing on their respective theory's strong points, in order to unveil the possible predominance of a certain logic to interregionalism.

 A number of experts note that in the European case, interregional construction in itself is a variant of the EU's claim to a global status. A changing world with obscure contours pushes Europe to seek its own place in the world (Baert, Scaramagli, and Soderbaum 2014).

 Thirdly, interregional relations have a combination of classical two-sided forms (bilateral) and multilateral asymmetric variants. For example, Hänggi (2000) points out that modern international relations have different variants of interregional ties, which can be empirically divided into three groups: relations between regional groups ("old" interregionalism); bilateral regional or transnational agreements (for example, agreements within the framework of the three world economic regions – Europe, America, Asia); and hybrid relations (between regional groups and individual countries or actors, like EU-China). From the theoretical point of view, Hänggi proposes to analyze interregional relations through a triad of theoretical approaches in international relations: realism, the liberal-institutional school, and social constructivism. In this study, we have followed the classification formulated by Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (2014), who sum up approaches to interregionalism and identify three types of interregionalism: pure interregionalism (institutionalized relationships between two regions), trans-interregionalism (narrow intergovernmental relationships, that may include the non-governmental organizations of two regions), and quasi-interregionalism (the region and country from another region).

 Fourth, the shape of interregionalism depends on the shape of the competing interregional and regional systems and structures, which are perceived as external challenges or threats. Some forms of interregional relations can have a different internal structure.

 Fifth, according to the principle of construction, interregional relations can be built on the EU model or, conversely, using the revisionist approach, according to the principle of searching for one's own model.

 Finally, interregionalism requires large internal resources, not just ambitions and aspirations. Exiting the region beyond its region can trigger a counter-reaction from representatives of neighboring regions. For growing economies, it is difficult to reach an interregional level because they have limits within the framework of their regional strategies and economic contexts (Acharya 2014: 85-86). There is a gap between global status aspirations and regional legitimacy. Acharya (2014: 102) argues that for the emerging powers, there is always the temptation to "leapfrog" their unglamorous neighborhood

 to pursue the global glitz and prestige that membership in BRICS and the Group of Twenty (G20) brings. And this is not a problem for only developing countries. It can be argued that the EU's global ambitions have also adversely affected the EU's domestic policy over the past five years.

 Assuming that interregionalism is the product of regionalism, regions and/or builders of the region are compelled to simultaneously build up internal regional ties and go beyond their region, meeting on their way both internal challenges and the external ambitions of neighboring regions. The authors of most papers and books do not question the role of the EU in the formation of regional processes; nevertheless, the tools and forms of regional construction outside Europe are still raising questions. Russia, claiming global status, continues to search for models and instruments of regional construction in Eurasia and, at the same time, looks for variants of interregional relations. As a complex theoretical approach, interregionalism gives us the criteria for further analyses of the GEP, and in this next section, we will try to identify the boundaries of the GEP within the discourse produced by the VDC, and, furthermore, characterize the main discursive realms, individually examined keeping in mind the theoretical background discussed above.

### *6.2.2. A bird's-eye view of the VDC's GEP discourse*

 This section of the article consists of a software analysis, which, despite its limited scope and data, was performed to provide a bird's-eye view of the VDC's expert discourse specifically about the GEP, a perspective we deemed necessary to understand the overarching ideas present in the formation of the Agenda for Eurasia. The first criterion for selection required that the text should treat the broader subject of regionalism, and the second criterion, that the text's focus be Eurasia. Both criteria narrowed down the prospective corpus's composition to 15 opinion columns by Timofei Bordachev, which spanned the period from 2016 to 2018. The results as presented in this article were manually simplified.

## *Software analysis*

 To process the data of the present study, the software IRaMuTeQ6 was used to analyze expert opinions from the VDC. IRaMuTeQ is a free statistical software

 IRaMuTeQ stands for 'R Interface for Multidimensional analysis of Texts and Questionnaire' (http://www.iramuteq.org/) and is a "visual interface" based on the R statistical software and on Python language. 6

 used to describe and analyze textual corpora. The software provides five types of data-processing: classic text statistics; analyses of similarities; analyses of specificities; word clouds; and descending hierarchical analysis (DHA).7 For the purposes of this research, only DHA was used,8 as we seek to understand the different linguistic clusters composing the discourse produced by the VDC experts and their relation to the underlying conceptual discourses of Russia's regional policy. The DHA is a method of analysis that identifies vocabularies or semantic clusters within different text segments not by measuring word frequency, but examining their relevance in relation to other words. The clusters are then organized hierarchically in terms of their overall predominance and proximity to one another. The names of the clusters and the following discussion of the results reflect the theoretical background and interpretation of the authors.

#### *Descending hierarchical analysis: Results and conclusions*

 The software fragmented the bulk of the texts into 802 text segments (TSs), out of which 702 (87.53%) were divided into two main classifications. The first main classification was "Between Two Worlds", composed of 525 TSs (74.78%). This was divided into two subgroups: "European Experience," composed of 216 TSs (30.77%), and "Pivot to the East," composed of 309 TSs (44%). "Pivot to the East" was further divided into "Eurasian Curse" and "China-Russia Discourse." The second main classification, and the more distant semantic cluster, was "Trade as the Foundation", composed of 177 TSs (25.21%).

 7 Max Reinert originally developed the method in the software ALCESTE, and he referred to the vocabularies or semantic clusters as "Lexical worlds"; for more detailed information on the intricacies of this method, see Reinert (1993) and Beaudouin (2016).

 8 The software analysis is not considered as a "method" of the research, only as a means to process data.

 As observed in Table 1,9 the first cluster ("Between Two Worlds") illustrates the duality within the philosophical discourse with regard to both the weight of the EU's regionalism and interregionalism experience in Russian expert discourse, and to the structural implications Russia must deal with in Central Asia, all the while drawing elements from the "comprehensive partnership" with China. In the first subdivision of the first cluster ("European Experience"), Bordachev builds on the European experience in terms of both the crisis it has been enduring in the past years and their integration model. The second subdivision of the first cluster ("Pivot to the East") is further fragmented, as it represents the broader structural discourse in Asia. The sub-cluster ("Eurasian Curse") illustrates the discourse string in which the political game between major players such as China, Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan brings both opportunities and challenges to Eurasian integration. The second sub-cluster ("China-Russia Discourse") shows the relevance and delicacy of the thread linking Russia and China, a pragmatic relationship upon which the discursive perspective has seen shifts from unprecedented rapprochement to a sober, contextually "restrained" alliance. Overall, while this information is certainly limited, it suggests two seemingly antagonistic, though self-reinforcing discursive strings. The first indicates that the better part (roughly 75%) of the materials from the Agenda for Eurasia written by Bordachev is dedicated to a philosophical and structural perspective, rather than to an objective and functional approach. The latter is found in the second string portrayed by the adjacent main cluster ("Trade as the Foundation"), which depicts the practical/functional discourse. Here the emphasis lies in the strategic importance of different trade and investment initiatives in the Eurasian region, the intersecting regional platforms and the interregional potential brought by these projects, and the challenges posed by bilateral non-tariff barriers to regional trade liberalization.

## **6.3. Preliminary outcomes of the research**

 Interregionalism is a multidimensional, complex, evolving, and simultaneously changing phenomenon, and as a theoretical approach, it is a set of options and tools for building a regional and interregional relationship. Applying criteria from interregional approaches, the Greater Eurasian Partnership can be

 The Chi-square value indicates the relevance of the association between a word and its respective cluster: all the words present in the table received a P value of < 0,0001, which represents the probability of random association. 9

 identified as an interregional project with its own features. We suppose that the GEP is an interregional project, and so we must identify its main features.

 The publications by the VDC experts were analyzed, and the quantitative analysis was run to provide a broader understanding of the expert discourse. It was then juxtaposed with a qualitative analysis of individual texts, with the aim of understanding what the GEP represents from the perspective of interregionalism. Several questions guided the former step, among them: what regional institution is to be the basis for building interregional relations? What are the motives for creating this interregional project? What type of interregionalism is expected? And what are the project's internal structure, ideology, and resources?

 Because the creation of projects in Eurasia is not an entirely new phenomenon in Russian politics, there is confusion regarding concepts and terms. In the framework of this study, we need to determine whether the terms "Greater Eurasian Partnership" and "Greater Eurasia" are synonymous in the Russian discourse. Reading the perspectives of Diesen (2017) and Luzyanin (2018), one could suggest that these terms are not being used interchangeably*.* From our point of view, these are different terms: they have different etymologies and theoretical backgrounds.

 The term "Greater Eurasia" is usually used in theoretical discourse as a geopolitical and spatial concept, which is an alternative to the concept of "Greater Europe". It is usually used in the context of building a macro-region in Eurasia, which includes regional institutions in the territory of Eurasia, in which Russia acts as one of the leaders. The term "Great Eurasian Partnership" was introduced in 2015, to be used in opposition to the concepts of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TTP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In this research, we will consider the GEP as a specific regional/interregional project, and Greater Eurasia as the place for its implementation.

 The theoretical basis for building the Greater Eurasian Partnership consists of both classical schools (realism, geopolitics) and relatively new approaches (geo-economics, macro-regionalism). It is interesting that representatives of the VDC do not use theories of interregionalism. Perhaps this is because interregionalism is associated with the European integration theories. A closer look at the contents of the cluster, "Between Two Worlds," has allowed us to see the difficulties present in the predominant Eurasia discourse of the VDC. On one hand, we've got the "European Experience" cluster indicating that in terms of the crisis it has been enduring in the past years, Europe's integration model is, in fact, a model to be followed, but not in a positive sense, as the VDC representatives propose to abandon the EU experience. In their perception, EU integration has had many problems and negative outcomes. As Bordachev

 (2017f) summarizes: "Current EU developments are an incentive for studying EU experience and reflecting on how to avoid their mistakes." On the other hand, the sub-cluster "China-Russia Discourse," illustrates the pragmatic relationship between the two being instrumentalized. However, from 2016 to the beginning of 2018, skepticism has corrupted the original optimism of this discursive string, producing shifts from unprecedented rapprochement to a sober

 and contextually "restrained" alliance. These pendular motions in discourse would indicate that the main takeaway would be to search for our own concept of building the GEP. Nevertheless, there is a reluctance to use the traditional Eurasianism theories, which, according to experts, cause more problems for the construction of the GEP than help understand what Eurasian integration is. Bordachev (2017c) understands the "Eurasian Curse" as "its inability to identify itself as a single entity. […] in the absence of a single basis of values, the ideologists of Eurasianism tend to focus on single institutions, therefore trying to repeat the path of the European unification*.*"

 The "Eurasian Curse" cluster has illustrated the discourse string where the political game between major players such as China, Russia, India, Iran, and Pakistan brings both opportunities and challenges to Eurasian integration. New projects in Eurasia should not emulate Western (European) experience. A new project "will be based on our own ideas and views rather than on copying, or the wish to 'cling' to the East or the West" (Bordachev 2017d). It seems that the search for a theoretical approach is still going on. Nevertheless, it is not entirely clear what the authors understand by geo-economics or what theories will be applied in the construction of a macro-region in Eurasia.

 Assuming that the motives for the creation of the GEP are the ambitions and claims of the Russian Federation for global status, the "development of a new Russian foreign policy narrative" (Bordachev 2017d) seems to be underway. Bordachev (2017b) also maintains that "the political events of the past few years give hope that Russia has shed its ambivalence and now sees itself as an independent development center rather than the periphery of Europe or Asia." Russia needs to traverse the same road taken by European countries such as Germany or France did for the sake of joint development and peace in the late years of the twentieth century. Leadership ambitions lie at the core of all projects initiated by Russia, nevertheless it seems that there is a shift now from leadership to a balancing model.

 Which regional institutes could become the basis for a new project? Experts of the VDC discussing Greater Eurasia and the GEP say two organizations could be in the running: the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov (2017), "Russia relies on the EAEU and on this

 basis it is ready to establish integration economic ties with the SCO and ASEAN countries*.*" Morgulov's words perfectly depict our cluster "Trade as the Foundation," which in its turn represents the practical/functional discourse. When the discussions include the specific tools for building interregional ties, experts address the EAEU. In general, this suggests that for the GEP to materialize, as also any attempt at regionalism in Eurasia, it should be built simultaneously within and upon several projects – SCO, EAEU, or the EAEU's confluence with the Chinese BRI, etc. Bordachev says Russia cannot rely on only one project. This is because of the strategic importance of the different trade and investment initiatives in the Eurasian region, the intersecting regional platforms, and the interregional potential brought by these projects.

 The interregionalism of the GEP is considered to be of a hybrid type: the EAEU can have agreements with other institutions (ASEAN, EU) as well as with individual states (Iran, India, China, Egypt, etc.). It is the first generation of interregionalism. Morgulov (2017) says that it is not only about "economic cooperation, but also about non-tariff regulation, elimination of administrative barriers, simplification of trade terms […]." Morgulov (2017) adds, "In all these issues there is progress with China, but the door to participation is open to all, including the EU countries."

 This means that the mega-regional international community created and operating in this framework can do a better job as far as democracy and sustainability are concerned (Bordachev 2017a). According to Bordachev, any projects in Eurasia should be built on a different model from the Western model of building regional ties based on the principles of democracy, on a nonhegemonic basis.

 The non-hegemonic model for building the GEP is supported by the specific role of China in Eurasia and the GEP. According to the quantitative analysis of the present study, China is second only to Russia in terms of noun frequency, with 210 mentions. Since 2016, there has been a shift from the "rapprochement" idea (Bordachev 2016a), which includes economic integration and political or military alliance-building (Bordachev 2016b), and more pragmatic or even skeptical approaches to the Russia-China relationship, which suggests that there is no hurry to formalize their allied relations at this historical stage (Bordachev 2017e). A great part of the publications is devoted to the bilateral relationship between Russia and China, but although China has great significance within the framework of interregional cooperation, it is not the only one there. Nevertheless, Bystritskiy (2018) concludes that Russia and China still have several questions to resolve.

 One of them, in keeping with the direction of our research, could be: how can the GEP be realized in an effective manner? Most of the works of the VCD do not provide an answer to this question, but they indicate the problems that

 exist within the framework of the construction of a Greater Eurasia. First on the list of problems is the "European Curse," which denotes the long history of relations between Russia and Europe, attempts to build common institutions, and reliance on the West-centric world order. The authors say quite definitely that there is a need to search for new models and partners. Secondly, the "Eurasian Curse," which is defined as Russia's lack of understanding of its regional identity. The history and philosophy of Eurasianism are ineffective at the present stage. There is a global problem of determining what Eurasia is, conceptually and territorially. Thirdly, the regional institutions, on the basis of which efforts are being made to build a mega-region, according to the authors, do not work effectively and have many internal problems. Finally, the issue of resources – human, financial, political, symbolic – remains relevant. From a financial and economic point of view, Russia loses both China and the EU. The trade turnover between Central Asia and China is higher than that between Central Asia and the Russian Federation. The sanctions policy of the West functionally restrains Russia's capacity to build economic relations. The policy of a besieged fortress inside the Russian Federation is not an attractive symbolic model for partner countries in post-Soviet Eurasia. The Greater Eurasian Partnership is one of the concepts of region-building that Russia champions, but it is a concept that is still evolving; its mention in political utterances remains undefined; and even documents containing at least declarations in its favor are few and far between.

## **6.4. Conclusion**

 Over the course of the study, we have tried to identify what the GEP is. We have observed the VDC authors acknowledge the weakness of contemporary regional institutions in Eurasia (such as the SCO and EAEU) as well as Russia's lack of adequate resources to fulfill its ambitious Eurasian agenda. But along with these acknowledgments, there have been constant affirmations about the need to build an effective space in which Russia will be able to realize its potential. Our quantitative and qualitative analyses demonstrate that the GEP is an interregional project aimed at building a mega-region in Greater Eurasia. It should, therefore, be built under the institutional auspices of the EAEU, and has to be an umbrella project which would include organizations in which Russia participates (such as the SCO or BRICS) and organizations outside of post-Soviet Eurasia (such as ASEAN and the EU). Within the proposed theoretical framework, the GEP project is identified as a hybrid type,

 which means it could include both bilateral agreements between organizations, and agreements between organizations and countries from another region or organization. The analyzed materials also indicate that the GEP should have as a base financial/trade agreements between all sides, as per the first generation type of interregionalism. Our results also hint that ideologically and theoretically, the concept of the GEP is being driven away from the Western model, which is considered ineffective by Bordachev, and taking a form that precedes its theoretical foundations.

 At the beginning of this study, we defined several limitations that our research had from the start, such as the lack of an official concept of the GEP, the self-censorship of research centers and their adherence to the official discourse in Russia, and the special situation the Russian Federation finds itself in with regard to Western sanctions. These abovementioned difficulties are external and mostly affect the object of study. We have, however, faced yet a few challenges that outsized those considered immediate to the GEP. The quantitative approach has demonstrated that Russia is still finding its own place in Eurasia, or, in other words, Russia is reformulating its regional identity in Eurasia. This poses a serious challenge to experts and politicians. Roughly 75% of the clustered text segments are related to its "balancing between two worlds." There is no understanding of how to escape the European and Eurasian "curses" and how to include Asian integration and regionalism in the new mega-project. The second challenge is that the better part of the articles of the VDC are dedicated to philosophical matters and even express recognition of the inability to overcome the barriers that prevent the building of a Greater Eurasia or the GEP. Experts criticize European regionalism as a policy driven by an ineffective theory, but how effective is it to push forward a project absent of theory, and can one develop an effective theory using the experience of previous aimless actions? Finally, since its conception, the Agenda for Eurasia has collected a great number of valuable ideas, but when will this pool of ideas coalesce into clear policy analysis or action?

 The time has come for policymakers to refrain from empty and dislocated words and quit their unnecessary philosophical inclinations towards the superlative. It is time to seek the formation and strengthening of pragmatic bilateral relations between the already existing institutional subjects. Considering the discussion delineated above, we have sought to provide recommendations on *how* Russia can push for the GEP.

 Any attempt to realize the GEP should focus on including the EAEU, the SCO, and the CIS, but under the very distant condition of greater institutional maturity in the region. The EAEU should play the core role because it already has agreements with a few Asian countries, and several memoranda signaling prospective cooperation with other organizations. Presently, the EAEU, the

 only prospective foundational organization over which the GEP can be built, finds its relevance diminished due to the multitude of channels member-countries use to conduct their commercial relations. Therefore, it is imperative that, first of all, the EAEU become a stable platform, and only then should it attempt to bridge other regional institutions.

 Russia should gradually and selectively start operating its own bilateral relations through the framework of the EAEU in order to first increase the relevance of the institution. Moreover, in order to start bringing their capacities on par with the *great* political ambitions that the GEP represents, more of the available resources should be channeled, mainly to the EAEU, and then to other regional institutions.

 The increased activity and relevance of the EAEU, over time, should facilitate bridging of the functions of other organizations, such as the SCO and the CIS. Provided these practices have already taken place and shown a certain degree of consistency, the next step could be to push for transregional approaches. Doing so would signal *concrete steps* towards substantiating the inspiring statements and declarations about a Great Eurasian Partnership, thereby bringing it to the notice of other participants.

 We believe that the time has come for Russia to cope with this changing world and devise a clear and effective strategy for its regional and interregional policy.

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### **Chapter 7 From competitive to inclusive trade regionalism: How to consolidate economic cooperation through a revival of 'ambitious RTAs' between major trading nations**

## **Marko Juutinen**

 *Faculty of Management and Business, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland*

## **Abstract**

 This chapter examines the interplay of geo-economics and legitimacy in the dynamics between regionalism and multilateralism. Its objective is to provide perspectives on why and how to harness regional foreign trade policies as a means to build a more legitimate international trade system. Thus, the starting point of this chapter is a normative conceptualization of trade multilateralism, defined in terms of decision-making and output. The crisis of trade multilateralism does not stem from just the Trump presidency, but is of much deeper and older origin. It could be argued that it depends more on geo-economic policies, embedded in the guise of a multilateral, equitable, and non-discriminatory world trade system. So the recent re-emergence of regionalism and regional rivalries would not seem to present us with a new phenomenon, but would instead represent a qualitative transformation of the geo-economics of a USled world order into the geo-economics of a pluralistic, post-hegemonic international system. Yet this chapter argues that this renewed prevalence of geoeconomics has not made multilateralism obsolete (in the sense of a legitimate form of transnational governance). In fact, there are both normative *and* geoeconomic reasons for consolidating legitimate multilateralism in the contemporary era. This solution would be centered on middle powers (like the EU, India, and Japan) and rely heavily on the emerging Indo-Pacific region.

**Keywords:** Geo-economics, legitimacy, middle powers, multilateralism, regionalism, WTO

### **7.1. Introduction**

 This chapter focuses on economic cooperation, an arena in which the World Trade Organization (WTO) plays a central role, yet has been challenged from various directions. Key challenges faced by the WTO concern its decisionmaking, regulatory outputs, and its decreasing status in the foreign trade policy agendas of the great powers. The rise of trade regionalism is a symptom of these challenges. The danger is that trade regionalisms will develop into competitive economic blocs, strengthening the discriminatory dimensions of world trade and undermining multilateralism as the normative bedrock of international economic governance. Moreover, as suggested by, for example, the capitalist peace theory, the relation of trade regionalisms to multilateralism is important in terms of not only the political economy and global governance, but with regard to peace and conflict research as well as security studies.

 This chapter examines challenges and solutions to trade multilateralism. Multilateralism is conceived of in two separate senses. On one hand, multilateralism can be seen as an ideal or a normative perspective on world economic governance, while, on the other, multilateralism refers to an actual institution of world economic governance, the WTO. While separate, these two perspectives are not entirely distinct. In fact, the normative dimension to multilateralism is at least to some extent encoded as part of the legal corpus of the WTO. Nonetheless, the political reality of the WTO is a different story. Yet, as a matter of governance, the rise and fall of multilateralism depends on its acceptability. The normative dimension to trade multilateralism can be defined in terms

  of decision-making and output. According to John Ruggie, multilateral institutions are based on "*generalized principles of conduct*" and decision-making "*without regard to the particularistic interests of the parties*" (Ruggie 1992: 571). This implies that no country or interest group can dominate the agenda setting in a multilateral institution for their own gain without regard to the interests of other countries or interest groups. It also implies that when regional cooperation takes place among some members of a multilateral institution, it should not be used to gain leverage for them to push for their particularistic interests on the multilateral forum. As WTO's main decision-making rule is consensus, and as one of its fundamental principles is non-discrimination, it is safe to argue that these normative notions about trade multilateralism do seem to resonate with the actual multilateral institutions of trade governance such as the WTO. With regard to output, the acceptability of trade multilateralism depends on its welfare implications. World trade should provide economic gains and welfare for all participants in a non-discriminatory manner (GATT

 1947/1994: art. 1, 3; GATS 1994: art. 2, 17; Hoekman and Kostecki 2003: 29; TRIPS 1994: art. 3–4; WTO 1994: art. 3).

 Let me synthesize these ideals as follows: in trade multilateralism, (1) decision-making should be based on equality and non-discrimination among all members; (2) outputs should benefit all; and (3) decision-making and outputs should not reproduce or strengthen former or existing power asymmetries, structures, and discourses.

 These ideals are to some extent embodied in the WTO legal corpus. Yet there is a gap between ideals and practice. This applies to both decision-making and outputs. With regard to the latter, it has been argued that the least developed countries have actually lost as a result of economic liberalization (Stiglitz 2002: 66), and that poverty and hunger have actually increased rather than decreased. According to Jason Hickel (Hickel 2016), promoters of the business-as-usual economic order have actively engaged in a good-news narrative about reduction of poverty and hunger to legitimize the current economic system. Yet, Hickel argues, the narrative is founded on statistical maneuvers instead of actual reductions. Moreover, WTO agreements do not adequately take into account market failures such as environmental degradation, unsustainable production and consumption patterns, and the various types of asymmetries between different market actors (Rivero 2010; Stiglitz 2002). Finally, with regard to decision-making, WTO has been run through negotiations between small groups of major powers, instead of all WTO members equally. In the 1990s they consisted of the major developed countries, while today, major rising powers are included (Hopewell 2016; Wilkinson 2015; Wilkinson, Hannah, and Scott 2014).

 John Ikenberry's (2015) concept of "hegemonic multilateralism" provides an explanation for why the WTO has failed to live up to its legitimacy criteria. According to Ikenberry, this concept refers to past American dominance in the WTO which granted the developed countries both leadership in the institution as well as a means to build trade rules that were particularly favorable to them and their domestic investors (see Barton et al. 2008). Thus, "hegemonic multilateralism" could be defined more broadly as the false appearance of multilateralism which disguises the discriminatory nature of world trade in terms of both economic gains and trade governance. In the current post-hegemonic world order, "hegemonic multilateralism" no longer exists in the WTO. Yet the ideal of joint decision-making "without regard to the particularistic interests" of major powers has not been realized. Scholars like Kristen Hopewell (2015) and Rorden Wilkinson (2015) have argued that WTO governance is still about asymmetric power relations and defined in bargaining between powerful countries – now including not only the United States (US), Japan, the European Union (EU), and Canada, but also rising powers like India, China,

 and Brazil. Instead of making legitimacy concerns less viable, these changes have obstructed WTO efficiency and undermined its role as a governance institution.

 Increasing pluralism in world affairs has not been followed by strengthening of multilateralism. In trade, it has instead been followed by intensified regionalism and rising protectionism. Instead of providing stepping stones for trade multilateralism, twenty-first-century trade regionalism appears to be of the offensive kind or supportive of what Jagdish Bhagwati (2008) has called the "stumbling blocks" of global liberalization. Representative cases of this ensuing regionalism have been the Mega-Regional Trade Agreements (MRTAs) initiated by the Barack Obama administration in the US and the EU. Various scholars (Hamilton 2014; Juutinen and Käkönen 2016; Subramanian 2015) have argued that the most significant of the MRTAs – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – were designed to contain China's rising economic influence and to write the rules of the global economy without the support of the developing countries and the emerging powers. The Donald Trump presidency put an end to this policy.

 Since President Trump reversed the aggressive Mega-Regional Trade Diplomacy (MRTD) of the Obama administration, multilateralism has not experienced a revival; instead, it appears that the aggressive MRTD has a new conductor. This refers to China's economic initiatives, in particular the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), supported by the tremendous financial arm of the Bank of China, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and, to a lesser degree, the New Development Bank. China seems to be taking the leadership position left vacant by Trump. Following some realist theories, one might hypothesize that China has already taken the place of the US as leader state within the existing world economic system (e.g. Tammen et al. 2000). In this context, is there any hope left for multilateralism?

 The objective of this chapter is to study the ways in which to consolidate economic multilateralism through a reformed regional trade policy agenda. This chapter hypothesizes that instead of the offensive approaches applied by the MRTAs, it is possible to search for inclusive trade policy agendas which speak more to the normative dimensions of trade multilateralism. This would involve two stages: first, to define some central challenges to multilateralism in terms of agenda formation, and second, to propose solutions to those problems. In an age of regionalism, this chapter seeks to revive multilateralism through inclusive regionalisms, as opposed to the offensive or hegemonic regional projects.

 When defining the challenges faced by the WTO, the focus here is not on the aforementioned systemic issues or the discrepancy between ideal and practice; instead, the focus is on some key factors that drive agenda-setting, or more precisely, on the different understandings among WTO members about what the ideals and practices of the WTO actually are or should be. Indeed, while most people can agree that the world trade system should produce economic gains, this does not imply that negotiating about how to realize this goal is easy because it depends on expectations regarding what a world trade system should do. Each country, obviously, has a trade policy agenda of its own, depending on all those factors that define how a given political system produces decisionmaking agendas.

 The chapter is divided into five main sections. The next section examines the different expectations of the WTO as well as the sources of contention at the WTO. The third section briefly examines some of the major Mega-Regional Geo-Economic Initiatives (MRGIs). Section four, which builds on the contestations at the WTO and the geo-economic regional challenges it faces, provides a perspective on reforming regionalism so as to minimize the geoeconomic dimensions and maximize the normative trade concerns. Section five presents the conclusions arrived at by this study.

### **7.2. Different expectations for the evolution of trade multilateralism**

 When the Doha Round was launched in 2001, developed and developing countries had generally different expectations of the outcome. The developing countries wanted to improve the Special and Differentiated Treatment provisions and retain restrictions on access to their domestic markets, while improving non-reciprocal access to developed country markets. In other words, developing countries sought to remedy the injustices of "hegemonic multilateralism". For the developing countries, the 2001 negotiating round was about *development*. For example, the BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – continuously stated that they "concur in the need for a comprehensive and balanced outcome of the Doha Round of multilateral trade talks, in a manner that fulfills its mandate as a 'development round'" (e.g. BRICS 2011: 26; BRICS 2016: 35; BRICS 2017: 33).

 The developed countries, on the other hand, while affirming the special needs of particularly the least developed countries, still focused on improved access to the developing and emerging markets (Hoekman 2014: 5). Moreover,

 they sought further liberalization of services commitments and tariff concessions, market access for agricultural products, stricter rules of subsidies and exceptions (trade distortions), and agreement on the so-called "Singapore issues" – investments, trade and competition, transparency in public procurement, and trade facilitation (e.g. Sharma 2004: 19).

 The Singapore issues were particularly controversial. The controversy concerning investments was inherited from an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) proposal for a Multilateral Agreement on Investments. This agreement would have shifted settlement of investment disputes from the multilateral arena, subject to multilateral oversight of dispute resolutions, to an independent panel under the International Court for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Secondly, it would have transformed the nature of disputes. From being state-to-state disputes, and ultimately of a diplomatic nature, they would have become legal battles of a technical nature between investors and states (OECD 1998).

 "Transparency in government procurement," which refers to the opening of public procurement markets, was another controversial issue. According to its proponents, it would contribute to a more effective allocation of resources and provide more choices for procurement officials. Its critics, meanwhile, argued that it would lead to the misplacement of public funds, and there might an adverse impact on work conditions and product quality resulting from competitive pressures as well as lack of sufficient procurement capacity by public officials (Mutiganda 2014; Sharma 2004; Woolcock 2003).

 The second issue that created dissonance in the Doha Round was the changing nature of world trade through global and regional value chains (GVCs and RVCs), defined by fragmentation of production as well as the possible fragmentation of consumption markets. Value chain trade is a relatively recent phenomenon. In 2011, Baldwin (2011:4) described it as a big unbundling and called it the defining feature of twenty-first-century trade. According to United Nations (UN) statistics, over 80 percent of world trade takes place through these value chains. During the last century, trade took place between different production facilities. Goods were produced at one place and shipped to another place for consumption. The major part of twenty-first-century trade is about trading the parts of a product.

 The term value chain trade implies different kinds of governance for production and trade. If the production and selling of one commodity takes place in an internationally dispersed framework, each step must be coordinated with others to create synergy for the whole operation. This is where the concept of supply chain management comes in. Often being the responsibility of the socalled lead firm, usually a transnational company (TNC), supply chain

 management involves branding, design, brand marketing, and coordination between different parts of the chain.

 In the heydays of twentieth-century trade, negotiations on trade rules focused on tariffs. These were the major impediments to trade in ready products. In contrast, twenty-first-century trade takes place in an environment where tariffs are already low. Moreover, the management of complex production networks implies that all those rules that affect the product – technical standards, safety requirements, intellectual property rights, and so on – must be in perfect synergy. While the production of a single entity for shipping abroad in twentieth-century trade only needed to comply with the production requirements in one country and the requirements for consumption in another, global value chains necessitate harmonious regulatory systems across regions (Baldwin 2011: 9).

 For efficient management of their value chains, lead firms require two things more than anything else: first, strong intellectual property rights to safeguard their patent portfolios, brands, and innovations, and second, investment protection to safeguard from state policies or discriminatory practices by states, state owner companies, or national regulators (Baldwin 2011; Hoekman 2014). Moreover, these rules and regulations should function in a harmonious manner all over the chain. That means that the regulations applied in one place should be compatible with those in another. This is one factor that links GVCs to the trade policies of the US and the EU: because these two are huge markets with highly regulated systems, many companies already comply with American and European rules and regulations. This provides the impetus for the many leading TNCs as well the US and the EU to aspire for globalization of these developed country rules.

 Another factor that links GVCs to the developed country trade agenda is control of the TNCs running the value chains. At least till in 2010, British, American, and German financial institutions were the top holders of decisionmaking power on the governing boards of most TNCs. Since then, it is probable that Chinese influence has increased, but there are no recent studies on whether Chinese companies have also become part of the elite that controls TNCs. According to Jerry Harris (2012), in at least the energy, resource, and manufacturing sectors, Chinese companies have not gained controlling positions in TNCs.

 As a result, the launch of the Doha Round did not result from an idea of some "generalized" interest or an idea of "common good," but rather the particularistic interests of WTO members to improve the world economy in order to better gain from it. Yet, as this meant vastly different things to different countries, a broad dividing line between the global North and the global South arose during the very first years of the Doha Round. Resulting from leadership

 by Brazil and India, this division was effective in the sense that it broke the developed country dominance in the WTO. Yet, an egalitarian, inclusive, and non-discriminatory decision-making system did not emerge from this power shift. The elitist club of the major developed countries of the 1990s and early 2000s was just replaced with a more inclusive club. While it included major developing countries like Brazil, India, and China, it still excluded most developing countries. As a result, a new South-South cleavage line has emerged in addition to the old North-South line (Hopewell 2016; Wilkinson et al. 2014).

 In conclusion, key challenges for the WTO Doha Round was managing these different expectations as well as the inability of WTO member-states to accommodate each other's interests. At the same time, from the perspective of acceptability of trade multilateralism, both the concerns for development and the concerns for global value chain requirements would appear legitimate.

## **7.3. Mega-regional geo-economics**

 The Doha Round was launched in the context of global power shifts. Because of the crumbling "hegemonic multilateralism," neither the developing nor the developed countries were able to dictate the outcomes. Apparently, the negotiators were equally unable to find a common-sense trajectory for economic development. This failure seems to be one of the major reasons for the emergence of MRTD. Unable to proceed in the multilateral arena, the developed countries sought to proceed through regional trade deals. Former US trade representatives Robert Zoellick and Susan Schwab have been quoted as saying: "Everyone knows that if there is no Doha Agreement, we are perfectly capable of moving ahead on the bilateral track" (Sharma 2004: 24). This is perhaps illustrative of the heights of confidence harbored by the developed countries and, at the same time, a dissatisfaction with the outcome of trade multilateralism. This frustration was one of the reasons why regional trade agreements began to gain in popularity (Antimiani and Salvatici 2015: 254; Muzaka and Bishop 2015: 391).

 Because of the failure at the WTO, developed countries launched regional trade deals to advance their trade policy interests. The US and 11 Pacific states embarked on negotiations for a comprehensive and ambitious free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), in 2010. Negotiations between the EU and the US on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) were launched in 2013. When the TPP negotiations were concluded on 4 October 2015, all the controversial issues at the WTO Doha Round were included

 in the final agreement. It also included a broader scope of non-trade issues, including chapters on labor and the environment. The US and the EU are not the only ones to launch Mega-Regional Trade Initiatives (MRTIs). Negotiations for a China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) were launched in 2012 between the member-states of the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its free trade agreement (FTA) partners, Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand. In addition to trade initiatives, China has also launched a major connectivity project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and has hugely increased in financial heft through the new financial institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) as well as the internationalization of the yuan (Huotari and Heep 2016).

 Employing the concept of geo-economics, these projects could be called Mega-Regional Geo-Economic Initiatives (MRGIs). While they are economic in substance, they are political and strategic in nature, and so geo-economic. Indeed, the definition of economics as decisions about who gets what, when, and how corresponds to one of the classical definitions of politics. With regard to the specific concept of "geo-economics," it has been defined, for example, as the geostrategic use of economic power (Wigell 2016: 137). Edward Luttwak (1990), on the other hand, derives geo-economics from the fundamental realist notion about states as territorially defined political entities that are primarily interested in the welfare and safety of their own citizens. Thus, economic relations for Luttwak reproduce this source of conflict on economic issues. For example, in regulating trade through trade deals or through transnational infrastructure projects, Luttwak argues that states are primarily aspiring "to maximize benefits within their own territory." In this context, the economy is not merely a source of conflict, but also the battleground and instrument of war: battles are won by the structuring of economic relations through regulatory or financial means in a manner that yields the maximum gain for exclusive territorially bound groups or areas (Luttwak 1990: 18, 21).

 The functional logic of the MRGIs varies. Western MRTAs would seem to use regulatory institutions or trade rules and institutional innovations as their primary modus operandi. With regard to trade rules, they manifest the regulatory turn in international trade, resulting from the shift of focus from tariffs to regulation as a means of trade liberalization. As mentioned earlier, twentyfirst-century trade requires high protection for intellectual property rights, investments, uniform regulatory standards, and trade facilitation (Baldwin 2011: 9). Not surprisingly, developed economies have pursued a trade agenda that is informed by supply chain trade not only through MRTAs, but also bilaterally (Hofmann, Osnago, and Ruta 2017).

 In addition, the Western MRTAs included a major innovation with regard to managing trade: regulatory cooperation. This innovation consisted of setting up regulatory bodies to review regulatory policies and implementation of trade deals by their signatories. These regulatory bodies were also allocated the duty of providing recommendations for another regulatory enhancement: the joint regulatory body between the participating countries. Unlike the WTO, this joint regulatory body enjoyed the political authority to issue binding interpretations of the trade rules and to allow direct connections with non-governmental stakeholders such as the TNCs and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Unlike the Ministerial Conference or the General Secretariat in the WTO, these bodies worked with the mandate that was granted them in the agreements, implying that deepening or changing the trade rules would not have required a new negotiating mandate. As a result, regulatory cooperation forced regulatory authorities into close cooperation with each other and provided regulatory flexibility to the agreements. In addition to regulatory harmonization, it would also have contributed to socialization among the regulators, giving the MRTAs some characteristics of a political integration process.

 The economic implications of the two MRTAs were twofold: slight economic rebalancing and significant safeguards for the Western economic rules. The TPP countries constituted the largest export market for US goods and services, representing 44 percent of US goods exports, 85 percent of US agriculture exports, and 27 percent of US private services exports. The TPP countries' combined share of total world gross domestic product (GDP) was about 40 percent, and the combined EU and US (TTIP) share was nearly 50 per cent. Moreover, transatlantic trade accounted for about 30 percent of world trade (Hamilton 2014). Together, the TPP and TTIP countries accounted for about 60 percent of the world GDP.

 Moreover, almost 40 percent of Chinese exports go to the US, the EU, and Japan. Similarly, almost 30 percent of Indian exports go to either the US or the EU. Indeed, the TPP and TTIP countries account for over 40 percent of the world's imports in merchandize goods and commercial services. The Chinaled RCEP countries' share of world trade, on the other hand, was less than 30 percent in 2014, and about a third of the RCEP share was made up by countries who are also TPP members – thus adopting the Western standards.

 Because of this size and the interconnectedness of world trade, the rules adopted in this area would have constituted the blueprint for global trade rules. It would have included the costs arising from the developing countries' need to raise their regulatory standards. But as various scholars have pointed out, market size and the ability and will to impose strict regulations are three key factors which explain the formation of international regulatory rules outside negotiation tables. The key reason, in other words, is the costs for companies

 to have multiple regulatory systems. If they adopt one system, they are likely to adopt the one with the largest market, and then apply that system all over (Vogel 1997). Accounting for over half of world trade, the mega-regional area could thus have been a means to impose the developed country agenda on the rest of the world even without support for it in the multilateral arena.

 Second, Western MRTAs would also have implied some level of economic rebalancing. According to a study commissioned by the European Commission (EC) on the economic impacts of the TTIP, the EU's GDP gains would be 0.48 percent by 2027, with total US GDP growth being 0.39 percent against the same benchmark. The estimated spillover effect for the rest of the world would be 0.14 percent during the same period, with China and India, respectively, experiencing additional growth of 0.04 percent and 0.03 percent (Francois et al. 2013: 82). As used by the EU and the US to evaluate economic gains, this study suggested greater benefits for the contracting parties, although the significance of the economic gains and the potential rebalancing appears minor.

 Other studies employing the same Computable General Equilibrium Analysis indicated negative effects from the TPP and TTIP on Chinese and Indian GDP, with estimated deterioration of 0.075 percent and 0.03 percent, respectively. Negative gains were also forecast for all non-member-states, leading to the conclusion that rebalancing is the first US aim for the two MRTAs, especially the TPP. China's losses would derive mainly from decreasing exports (Bi, Xiao, and Xiao 2013: 207-208; Petri and Plummer 2016: 20). These prognoses suggest a limited impact on the rebalancing of the power shift. According to Arvind Subramanian (2015: 54), lowering barriers between the American, Asian, and European markets will increase the comparative advantage for companies within the trading bloc, with a corresponding decline in China's competitive position globally. The effect would extend to a broad range of market access and non-tariff issues such as technical barriers to trade (TBT) (e.g. regulation of chemicals) or food and animal safety regulations.

 Looking at the case of Western MRTAs, geo-economic regionalism can be defined as trade policies focusing on dismantling regulatory trade barriers and construction of regulatory cooperation in such a manner that it simultaneously enhances global value chain trade while maintaining, if not enhancing, existing power configurations within the global economy. In other words, it would be difficult to define Western MRTAs as a legitimate means to promote trade multilateralism or as a means to create a normatively acceptable gold standard for global trade.

 The election of President Trump put an abrupt end to developed country mega-regional geo-economics. The US resigned from the TPP and began to resort to protectionism. Without the US, the other members of the group that

 had dominated the WTO, the EU, Japan, and Canada, do not possess the economic power to continue the developed country offensive. Still, Japan seeks to reinvigorate the TPP without the US, while the EU and Canada have concluded a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with each other. The EU, moreover, seeks expansion of trade through bilateral and regional FTAs with minor economic powers. In their undertakings, the developed countries seek ambitious outcomes, that is, trade deals that take into account the requirements of value chain trade, and that have a strong focus on regulatory issues but also involve non-trade issues. Without US participation, however, the lure of the European, Canadian, and Japanese initiatives is not as irresistible. At least, it is not without a counterpart.

 While the Trump presidency did away with the Western MRTD, China seems to have taken up that role. The China-centric MRTA, the RCEP, which accounts for about half the world's population and a good third of the world's GDP, is set to be ready by the end of 2020. Its membership is centered on the ASEAN countries, and in addition to China, it includes India and Indonesia as well as the TPP members, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. Like the TPP and TTIP, the RCEP is also WTO compatible. Yet trade scholars have argued that compared to the EU and US FTAs, the ASEAN-based FTAs and the trade deals between the Southern economies do not involve deep WTO-plus provisions. How the RCEP, and perhaps the CETA, differ is still impossible to demonstrate explicitly, because the RCEP text is not yet available. However, the differences between North-North and ASEAN-based FTAs have been noted in previous scholarship: they don't generally include deep intellectual property protections, regulatory convergence, or regulatory cooperation (Capling and Ravenhill 2011; Hofmann et al. 2017; Wilson 2015; Ye 2015: 211).

 In addition to trade, China is also pushing strongly with its geo-economic integration project, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which overshadows the US Marshall Plan. Launched in 2013, it consists of two parts: the Silk Road Economic Belt on land and the Maritime Silk Road in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean. On land, the belt brings together China, Central Asia, Russia, and Baltic Europe. The two economic corridors connect the belt with the maritime road. These corridors are the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). The Maritime Road consists of additional ports along the sea line, connecting China. Together, the belt and road connect not only landlocked South Asian states such as Afghanistan to the Indian Ocean, but also create a shortcut from Russia, Central Asia, and China to the Indian Ocean, and from there to the Middle East and Africa (Len 2015; Yu 2017: 358). China's financial power provides strong support for these initiatives. For example, the China

 Development Bank has larger resources than the World Bank and Asian Development Bank together (Harris 2012: 22).

 China's growing influence is a cause of worry for its neighbors. For example, in South Asia, Chinese investments, unmatched by India, threaten to draw India's neighbors to China's suzerainty. In 2012, for instance, China offered over \$400 billion worth of investments to Nepal's hydrological sector, granted the country an infrastructure loan, and launched a project to connect the country using a railway across the Himalayas that goes into China (Panda 2017: 128, 129). China's growing influence is a matter of concern in the South Asian and Indian Ocean region. Because China is the biggest player in the RCEP and the central node of connections in the new Silk Road, it is likely to influence the framing of trade rules in these markets. At the same time, because of the size of these efforts, China will likely bear a strong influence on the constitution of global rules as well. Like the Westerns MRTAs might have done, the influence of the RCEP and BRI on the global trade system is also likely to take shape in an exclusive manner – without the presence of either most of the least developed countries or many of the developed countries. Thus, this would do little to enhance the legitimacy of world trade. Instead, it would enhance the power and influence of one state and its elites, most notably the Chinese Communist Party.

 Consequently, MRGIs can be defined as processes that have global implications, which are designed by an exclusive group of states, and which grant discriminatory gains for this group. What then, if anything, can be done to weaken the geo-economic trend in global economic policies and to consolidate multilateralism against the geo-economic regional challenges?

## **7. 4. From geo-economic to inclusive regionalisms**

 We have so far argued that MRGIs present us with a contemporary form of realist foreign policy that has global implications and that uses economic interdependences, financial measures, and trade rules to advance particularistic interests. The threat with MRGIs is their lack of multilateral approval and the possibility of them, due to their size, of either reforming or restructuring the international economic order or of dividing the existing multilateral level and thus degrading its relevance to the bare minimum. In the context of an increasingly pluralistic international order, with no single power able to decide for others, and with the ultimatum of climate change looming over us, cooperation has become not only ever more important, but is also perhaps the only way for

 global solutions. In this context, it is of outmost importance to examine ways in which to dismantle geo-economics from regionalism. This is the task in this penultimate section.

 As we saw earlier, the MRGIs have been pushed by the great powers and a group of their potential allies. In this sense, the TPP and TTIP could have been denominated US-led MRGIs, while the BRI, RCEP, and AIIB represent China-led MRGIs. Yet the international order is not bipolar but pluralistic because the influence of the two global powers in the world depend on their allies and neighbors (and cooperation among themselves). Middle powers like Japan, Australia, India, the EU, and others also have a role to play. At this moment, the middle powers have seemingly been content with a passive role in world affairs in the sense that the MRGIs have been directed most strongly by the US and China. Now, in search for global leadership that builds more on legitimate concerns of governance than on geo-economics, the natural choice are those powers who do not have the ability to maximize their national gains through geo-economic means. This group of states would seem to be a broad one encompassing both middle and minor powers who, maybe more than others, are dependent on a rules-based international order.

 The most powerful group of middle powers comprises the EU, Canada, Japan, India, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, and Iran. Among them, the EU, Japan, and India are the most powerful. In terms of economic cooperation and mega-regional geo-economics, the EU, Canada, Japan, and Australia were the US's partners in the TPP. India is one of the states that are negotiating the RCEP, but so also are Japan and Australia. While Japan, Australia, and India have strong ties with China, they have demonstrated strong aversion to the potential geostrategic implications of Chinese initiatives, especially the BRI. Because of the increasing Chinese influence in the region, these four Asian middle powers have sought to deepen cooperation among themselves. In terms of trade, however, they cannot take the leadership in Asia because of their heterogeneity, which reflects the diverse interests and expectations along the North-South and South-South cleavages. The ASEAN-based RCEP, with China as the major power, would then seem to be the least common denominator agreement with increased access to China as the bonus in it. In other words, the Asian powers have demonstrated their willingness to cooperate, but they lack either the will or the economic muscle or both to take the initiative.

 In the Western hemisphere, the EU and Canada are struggling with the US's "make America great again" policies, which have eliminated the potential for Western MRGIs. Brexit just makes things worse for the EU, which has for many years been negotiating an FTA with India, but which, without India's major European ally, the UK, becomes an ever-more distant option. The

 implication is that the European and North American control over global value chains as well as the geography of the value chain trade is being shifted to Asia (Khanna 2019). If regulated by an RCEP framework, companies producing in and exporting to the EU, Canada, and the US may have to do so with higher costs than their counterparts in Asia. This is the flip side of highly specialized regulatory systems: if you can make others comply with your standards, you will enjoy competitive advantages, but if you cannot, you will be at a disadvantage. For this reason, the EU seeks to patch the gap left by the MRTAs with bilateral trade deals like the CETA with Canada or comparable agreements with South Korea and Japan. Yet, a patch is a poor substitute.