Regionalismo e regionalizzazione. Un confronto sistemico tra Europa e Sud-Est Asiatico

Regional integration, in its various forms, is an issue that has become increasingly important over the last decades. The idea of regionalism in international politics essentially belongs to the twentieth century. At the time of its initial formulation, after the World War I, the liberals professed universalist ideas of collective security and global governance that left little room for regionalism. The common idea among the liberal elite was quite clear: regionalism was a product of the old system of balance of power. But, after the defeat of the League of Nations, some interest towards regional agreements rise above. The political and economic aspects of this process have gained more and more importance among both the academics and civil society. In shaping these realities come into play several factors, among which we can highlight the role of governments and the civil society, the different degrees and perceptions of the process of democratisation, the socio-economic differences between two very different systems. European Union provides the most institutionalized regional integration system in the world. But it would be quite wrong to assume that in an “eurocentric” perspective, declaring or thinking that the regionalist projects in other parts of the World would be a kind of linear projection of European regionalism. In this paper I would like to draw some sort of comparison between the regional system by definition, the European Union (EU), and his alter ego, in some respects,of Southeast Asia, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).