Abstract

The seemingly sudden end of the Cold War and the succeeding disintegration of the Soviet Union opened the 1990s as a decade promising structural change in a geopolitical system premised on the overall stability of superpower rivalry. Yet as this decade comes to a close, challenges to the structure of global politics have grown deeper and more pervasive than could have been conceived only 10 years before. Postmodernist deconstructions of the meaning and viability of states have emerged throughout the course of this decade to challenge the very viability of the Westphalian state system upon which the fundamental principles of global politics have been based. Concurrent with these philosophical developments has been the institutional emergence of quasi-political entities, herein referred to as 'trans-state entities' (TSEs), comprised of the constituent parts of neighbouring states. It is argued that TSEs manifest as the result of the convergence of the increased permeability of boundaries between states and this postmodern deconstruction of states themselves as their sub-state political units seek closer co-operation, even policy co-ordination to improve their collective economic, environmental, or other situation. Three TSEs diverse in both geographical location and in institutional manifestation, yet concurrently quite similar in their means, purposes and goals will be examined.

Introduction

"Physical concepts are free creations of the human mind, and are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world."

—Albert Einstein

When in November 1989 Berliners from East and West first pierced the ideological barrier represented by the Berlin Wall, a physical construct which had dominated their perceptions of the world and their place within it for more than a generation, structures both seemingly perpetual and ominous on the physical and psychological landscapes of global politics disappeared with sudden ease. But these boundaries had years before suffered irreparable, if not manifestly physical damage from the profound intensification and influence of global economic and technological forces. Much as these ideologically constructed frontiers between the 'capitalist' and 'communist' worlds grew increasingly permeable to goods and information during the decades of the Cold War era, so too the physically demarcated states of the world experienced a profound inability on the part of their central governments to control or limit such forces. Only with the succeeding disappearance of the veil of Cold War tension from global politics could the significance as well as the danger of such exceedingly intrusive global forces receive the attention their influence and revolutionary effects had warranted at least a decade earlier. Globalisation as a concept and a process has arguably enveloped the world and driven its relations for millennia, yet the new technologies of the twentieth century and their concomitant philosophies have raised the consciousness of governments and citizens to globalisation's influence, both beneficial and detrimental and to the oft-romanticised and oft-anticipated 'global village.' The result of technological advances in travel and information collection and dissemination, the compression of both time and space intrinsic to the contemporary manifestation of globalisation paradoxically heightens both the importance and the irrelevance of borders surrounding states and a variety of other politico-territorial entities. And simultaneously serves as catalyst for the reorientation of existing physical boundaries and the psychological concepts attendant to them.

Ethnic and cultural turmoil, never truly engulfed in state attempts at assimilation or nation-building, intensified and exacerbated cultural relations within and across existing borders. Provincial and municipal political institutions, both newly-created, but notably many of which pre-date the modern state system, gained power and prestige within and across existing boundaries. Economic relations and trade linkages, often stifled by the previous half-century of ideological warfare, re-emerged and expanded within and across both regions and states. And ecological crises and concerns, once limited in territorial and conceptual scope, reached across natural and artificial barriers. Globalising forces in each of these realms continue to challenge the most pervasive physical concept of the contemporary world. Inextricably linked with globalisation, the processes of localisation appear as reactions, often negative 'backlash', to globalisation's perceived tendencies to cultural homogenisation and political marginalisation of peoples and governmental institutions. More often, however and more profoundly, localising forces manifest less as ideological barriers to intrusive globalising forces, than as pragmatic crucibles which facilitate the incorporation within the forces of globalisation and guarantee the perpetuation of the distinctive cultural and political structures persistent within and among existing states. Perhaps interpreted as bolstering the physical and psychological boundaries designed to separate and distinguish peoples and economies, these localising forces instead serve to augment the increase in autonomy among state and sub-state political institutions and respond to the increased salience for these local entities of global politics, once the exclusive domain of territorial states.

As globalising forces, manifested as the recognition by states of their common plight and the necessity for common action, draw decision-making power and authority away from states to regional and global institutions such as the European Union or the World Trade Organisation, these same globalising forces simultaneously permit entry into the arena of global politics for sub-state entities, perceived both as large metropoles and the administrative districts or provinces of territorial states. Concurrently, localising forces allow these sub-state entities to circumvent the central governmental structures of the states of which they are constituent parts and forge relations outside the traditional lines of global communication to co-ordinate with sub-state entities, often within other states, to exert their collective influence on global politics and even within global institutions. Recognising common policy concerns and acknowledging the benefits of policy co-ordination in an ever-expanding cache of issue areas, neighbouring regions or provinces, constituent parts of discrete states, in looking to each other rather than to their often physically and perhaps ideologically distant central governments in their respective state capitals establish trans-state entities not merely to safeguard their interests and advance their concerns at the global level, but also to collectively and thus more effectively confront and resolve these concerns at the local level.

Why have sub-state entities come to exert increased influence in global politics? Why do these entities join with neighbouring sub-state entities, often lying across international borders, to co-ordinate policies? Why do these sub-state entities perceive as necessary the formation of trans-state entity structures to formalise this co-operation and policy co-ordination? And why are these dramatic innovations in governance occurring and resultant complexities appearing at this specific point in history?

'We care about being Lombards first and Europeans second. Italy means nothing to us.' Two short sentences uttered in 1993 by Paul Friggerio succinctly state the quandary and the complexity of events within the crucible of what James Rosenau refers to as 'fragmegration', the arena in which the filtering and fusing of the forces of globalisation and localisation both break down traditional constructs and give rise to new ones. That Italy 'means nothing' is not merely an ethnic or political condemnation of a political entity, but equally so an economic declaration of distinctiveness. Indeed, James Rosenau suggests that the effects of fragmegration on the contemporary world and its political system manifest perhaps most distinctly in the economic realm. And, fittingly, of the trans-state entities which have only recently appeared as formal institutions on the landscape of global politics, it is the concept of the 'growth triangle', predominately economic in its origins, which stands as perhaps the most recognisable of these entities.

After a brief exploration of the heightened activities, clearly discernible since the end of the Cold War, yet also evident in the decades before, of cities and counties, provinces and regions in the global economic and political arenas, this work will focus on the emergence, structure and potential of trans-state entities (TSEs). Finally, an examination of the development and future prospects of three trans-state entities from diverse regions of the globe will focus on the viability and potential spread of such structures. Still in their early stages of development, the three TSEs examined are the Pacific Northwest Economic Region, also commonly known as Cascadia, in North America, the Barents Euro-Arctic Region in northern Europe and the Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle, commonly referred to as Sijori, in Southeast Asia. These entities manifest as a result of the pervasive influence of globalisation on physical concepts spurning a localisation which develops to accommodate and further advance the process of globalisation while simultaneously preserving and strengthening the pluralism of human society. Emerging along this path of fragmegration, these trans-state entities, their early development and their prospects, profoundly challenge the perpetuation of Einstein's dominant physical constructs and perhaps even portend future shifts in global political constructs.

Sections of the work

All Economics is Local


"It is but a small portion of the public business of a country which can be well done or safely attempted by the central authorities."
—John Stuart Mill

Cooperation Crosses Borders


"Boundary, n. In politics, the imaginary line between two nations, separating the imaginary rights of one from the imaginary rights of the other."
—Ambrose Bierce

• Roots of Trans-State Entities
• Other Theoretical Incarnations of Trans-State Entities
• Factors in the Development of Trans-State Entities

Nascent Trans-state Entities


"The nation-state has become an unnatural, even dysfunctional, unit for organizing human activity and managing economic endeavor."
—Kenichi Ohmae

• The Entities
• A History of Integration
• Organizational Structure
• A Reliance on Public and Private
• Problems
• Successes

Prospects for and Expansion of Trans-State Entities


"The message to nation-states is that we hope you guys don't get us involved in a war —but, beyond that, you're irrelevant."
—Paul Schell

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