The Rise and Fall of Interregionalism in EU External Relations

The proliferation of regionalism in recent decades has led to increased relations between regional groups in different parts of the world, and the European Union (EU) has been central to the development of this new interregional phenomenon. This book sets out to analyse the rise and fall of interregionalism in EU external relations by looking at how the EU has strategically pursued interregionalism over time, and at how this has subsequently worked in practice. The EU, in the 1990s, strategically employed interregionalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America and this book takes the specific case of Latin America to chart the course of EU interregionalism. "This volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the ways in which the European Union engages with other regions in the global arena. Its original framework, based on the analysis of 'complex inter-regionalism', provides a strong focus for evaluation of the multi-level processes that have emerged from the EU's pursuit of regional partnerships, and its detailed empirical study of EU relations with Latin America is a model of the ways in which such work should be carried out. The book will be useful not only to academics and students working in this area, but also to policy-makers in a variety of contexts." Mike Smith at the University of Loughborough