The Analysis of Regional International Politics: The Integration Versus the Empirical Systems Approach

It is argued that the study of regional international politics is important (1) for empirical reasons having to do with the real world saliency of the region as a factor in international politics; (2) for theoretical reasons having to do with the subordinate system as being relatively neglected in scholarship with the exception of the integrationist approach; and (3) for policy reasons having to do with the importance of accurately understanding the dynamics of the region as part of the objective of stabilizing the international system. The dominant approach to regional international politics of the integrationists (neo–functionalists and transactionalists) is then discussed and criticized in terms of the two approaches' normative concerns, the nature of the model utilized, and the theoretical issues that are raised. A major conclusion is that the integrative model used is inappropriate as a vestige of the level of analysis problem, and such theoretical issues as the nature of the dependent variable remain unspecified. It is then argued that the authors' formulation of an empirical systems approach begins to meet these criticisms.