Regions and Cities Governance Lab (Re-LAB)

No longer is the autonomous nation-state the only actor in the international sphere. Actors at the supra- and sub-national levels now have a say in the domains previously monopolised by states, shaping and influencing matters of trade, politics, migration, humanitarian action, and security, to name but a few.

On the supranational level, the wave of “new regionalism” that began in the 1980s and 1990s has led to the formation of various new regional organisations that vary, in some cases significantly, in terms of size, scope and effectiveness. Underpinning this is the fact that regions across the globe are very diverse, hosting different cultures, political systems and in some cases troubled neighbourhood histories, which tends to determine the level of institutionalisation, whether integration is deep or shallow, and their overall effectiveness. In some cases, there is overlap between regional organisations, adding a further constraint to their capabilities. Regions are also dynamic, best illustrated by the recent bouts of disintegration such as Brexit, highlighting that they remain vulnerable to increasing nationalist sentiment in many states. Despite these challenges, the globalised world we live in demands international, regional and, at the very least, cross-border cooperation to tackle issues such as climate change, pandemics, and sudden and sharp economic downturns, reinforcing their importance in addressing our collective challenges.

At the other end of the multi-level governance structure are substate regions and cities, both of which are growing in importance and stature on the international stage in recent decades. This is best exemplified by the U.S. state of California ranking as the sixth largest economy in the world, ahead of India, the UK and France, with other U.S. and Chinese regions entering the top 20. Further down the governance scale, cities are increasingly behaving like international actors, forming cross-border partnerships, organising transnational networks, and engaging with international organisations in their pursuit of objectives related to, for instance, climate change and migration.

The Regions and Cities Governance Lab focuses on the institutional dynamics of regions. It aims to explore the capacity and actorness of the governance levels beyond the nation-state, and their evolution as new actors in the international sphere, as is the case with substate regions and cities, or as actors under stress and in need of reform, in the case of regional organisations. This cluster considers the world itself as a laboratory of continuous institutional adaptation.

Current streams of research within the Regions and Cities Governance Lab include:

the conceptualisation of regions
the methodological aspects of comparative regionalism studies
the institutional dynamics of regions and regional organizations
multi-level governance
interregionalism and extra-regional actorness of regions
the international actorness of sub-state regions and cities
the regionalisation and localisation of SDGs
Unit on Non-Traditional Diplomacy (UNTRAD)

Projects

Competing through Culture. Comparing the EU’s and Russia’s Cultural Diplomacies in the Post-Soviet Space

PhD Fellow: Domenico Valenza
Promotor: Fabienne Bossuyt
Funding: BOF Ghent University (UNU-CRIS label)
- 1 January 2019 – 31 December 2022

The Shared Neighbourhood between the EU and Russia: From Conflictual towards Cooperative Regional Orders

PhD Fellow: Louise Amoris
Promotor: Fabiienne Bossuyt
Funding: BOF Ghent University (UNU-CRIS label)
- 1 January 2021 - 31 December 2024

EU Conflict Mediation in its Wider Neighbourhood: Mapping and Explaining the EU’s Incoherent Involvement in Peace-Making

PhD Fellow Katsiaryna Lozka
Promotors: Fabienne Bossuyt and Tim Haesebrouck
Funding: BOF Ghent University
- 1 November 2020 - 31 October 2024

Handbook on Regional Cooperation and Integration

Editor: Philippe De Lombaerde, Edward Elgar Publishers, 2020-2021

Special Issue on Disintegrations

Editors: Philippe De Lombaerde and Andrew Dunn, Comentario Internacional, 2021.

Completed Projects

El CSID: European Leadership in Culture, Science and Innovation Diplomacy

Scientific Coordinator: Luk Van Langenhove
Project Researchers: Léonie Maes, Elke Boers and Riccardo Trobbiani
Partners: Vrije Universiteit Brussel, The University of Warwick, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, The Euro-Mediterranean University, The Centre d’Etudes Diplomatiques et Stratégiques, the Joint Institute for Innovation Policy, The Graduate School of Public Policy at Nazarbayev University and The National University of Singapore.
Funding: European Commission, Horizon 2020, March 2016 – February 2019
http://cris.unu.edu/european-leadership-culture-science-and-innovation-diplomacy-el-csid

Book Project on The Changing Order – Challenges and Prospects

Editors: Madeleine Hosli and Joren Selleslaghs, UNU Series on Regionalism, Vol. 17, Springer, 2020

Parliamentary Deliberation in Inter-Regional Relations (PADIRE): An Analysis of Climate Change Debates in the EU’s Parliamentary Assemblies with the ACP, the Mediterranean, Latin America and the Eastern Neighbourhood Regions

Regions and Cities Governance Lab (Re-LAB)

Projects

Completed Projects

People