A Future for Regionalism?

Support for regionalism in theory and practice has gone through a series of phases in both regions. Regionalism has at its core two key formal institutions: the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and CARICOM. Alongside these, dozens of other bodies coordinate everything from aviation and customs, to public health, environmental management and fisheries, as the foundation of and support for regional governance and management. Regionalism has evolved in SIDS, both in terms of political, cultural and economic factors, subverting the discursive hegemony of colonial and subsequent development projects that belittled islanders and their people. National interests, competitive impulses, the presence of global organisations and limited technical capacity to manage multiple regional organisations across vast areas pose problems. Different interests in environmental matters at a more local scale and regional interests in Latin America and Asia have complicated the operations of regional organisations, which have tended to achieve most in technical matters such as fisheries and IT management.