Regionalism as a Political Vision - Possibilities and Limits of the Global Approach to the Issues of Regional Integration

If one looks to the world from an international relations’ perspective, it is tempting to analyse the present situation in terms of a clash between the advocates of multilateralism and those that foster bilateralism. The former will refer toglobalisation and interdependency as processes that call for more global governanceand thus more multilateralism. As Keohane once noted, ‘interdependence and the lack of governance, when combined, make a deadly mixture’. The latter will point tothe many deficiencies of the current multilateral system and argue that (bilateral)‘ coalitions of the willing ‘between like-minded’ are the way forward. There might,however, be a third way that combines global multilateralism with local bilateralism. In this paper, I will advocate that regionalism might be such a third way and that Europe has a major role to play in advancing global governance and that regionalismcan contribute to creating a more secure and just world-order.