Differentiated Disintegration in the Economic Community of West African States, the Eurasian Economic Community and the European Union: A Comparative Regionalism Approach

Abstract

The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union has sparked interest in voluntary withdrawals from regional organisations (RO). While Brexit is a well-researched subject, other exits from ROs around the globe have been somewhat neglected. We still know relatively little about states’ motivations to leave and how such exits play out in the short and long run. This article addresses both gaps. First, it conceptualises withdrawals from ROs as differentiated disintegration to better grasp the pre- and post-exit dynamics. Second, it puts forth three factor groups explaining states’ reasoning composed of (i) geopolitical and geoeconomic conditions, (ii) intra-regional tensions and (iii) domestic factors. Third, it applies this framework to Uzbekistan’s exit from the EurAsEC, Mauritania’s departure from ECOWAS and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Despite great differences in the regional setup and level of institutionalisation, we find that strong parallels can be drawn between all three cases.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07036337.2024.2349620
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Politics, History and International Relations
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Aston Centre for Europe
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities
Aston University (General)
Additional Information: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Africa,Central Asia,Europe,comparative regionalism,differentiation,flexible cooperation,regional organisations,Political Science and International Relations,Sociology and Political Science
Publication ISSN: 1477-2280
Last Modified: 02 Dec 2024 09:05
Date Deposited: 21 May 2024 16:20
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.tan ... 37.2024.2349620 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2024-05-08
Published Online Date: 2024-05-08
Accepted Date: 2024-04-25
Authors: Gänzle, Stefan
Wunderlich, Jens Uwe (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-1278-4773)
Hofelich, Tobias C.

Download

[img]

Version: Published Version

License: Creative Commons Attribution

| Preview

[img]

Version: Accepted Version

Access Restriction: Restricted to Repository staff only


Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record