Introduction and Overview

This book focuses on the role of regional integration as a means for societies, economies, and states to survive in the struggle called globalization. Members of the Triad, the United States, Japan, and the European Union, have developed different types of networks to enhance their competitive strengths.1 While acting globally, each of the three players has been engaged in shaping geographically contingent regions to fit into integrated networks, subordinating weaker economies.2 It is not by chance that the countries that maintain closer relations are often those who in the past were bound to each other in a colonial type of relationship. Since their respective backyards are structured differently, politically, economically, but also culturally, it comes as no surprise that the web of relations developed by members of the Triad differs in many respects. Weaker countries take part in integration schemes led by Triad members, and at the same time attempt to develop their own network of institutions in the form of regionalism to better withstand pressures from members of the Triad, and other possible competitors. Processes of integration thus occur at many levels and layers; competition promotes integration, but various forms of integration processes in turn sharpen competition among all participants.