*** SEBASTIEN SANTANDER (Eds.): Concurrences régionales dans un monde multipolaire émergent. Presses Interuniversitaires Européennes / Peter Lang (41 av. Maurice, B-1050 Brussels. Tel: (41-32) 3761717 – Fax: 3761727 – Email: brussels@peterlang.com et order@peterlang.com – Internet: http://www.peterlang.com ). ‘Enjeux internationaux’ series, No. 40. 2016, 358 pp, €46, 37 £., 59,95 $. ISBN 978-2-87574-348-0.
Regionalism in the world is now conjugated in the plural since these days it exists on all five continents in a multiplicity of forms. These projects are not of the same tempo or at the same stage of development since, as Prof. Santander points out in this introductory chapter, regionalism is a political phenomenon covering ‘a dynamic, shifting reality that can experience spurts both also slowing down or even regressions.’ All the same, competition is being sketched out these days between regional projects, whether or not emerging from different continents, aiming to ‘shape in their image rules and standards of global economic and political governance.’ Thus, from the European viewpoint, all that is required to become convinced of this is to see how Putin’s Russia has committed to the drawing up of an Asiatic Economic Union with countries from the former Soviet bloc in order to compete with the European Union. With its silk routes, China is making efforts of a similar scale in its rivalry with the United States, which has become an unpredictable unknown on the mappa mundi of trade since Donald Trump arrived in power.
Arising from a conference organised by Liège University’s Center for International Relations Studies in November 2015, this book obviously doe not take account of questions relating to the United States, but that does not make is less interesting because in the book researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America provide scientifically-balanced responses to a perfectly topical question: ‘Are emerging regional, interregional and transregional structures a way of organising international relations and thus a vector for structuring global governance, or are they channels of exacerbation of international competition and thus fragmentation of the world?’ The answers to this question provide an enlightening fresco of the state of the world in the light of these regional projects’ characteristics, the book opening with a contribution on the place of regional organisations in global governance and their recognition by multilateral bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. The first part of the book deals with the reorganisation dynamics of Asia in the light of three initiatives that structure relations in that part of the world, the South-East Asian Regional Cooperation Association, the Association of South-East Asian Nations and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. In the second part of the book, on the Americas, three contributions examine, as Prof. Sebastien Santander, puts it ‘the decomposition of regional organisations under way at a time when the continent is becoming fragmented and more heteroclite in terms of politics,’ some of its players and organisations forming part of liberal globalisation and recommending a shift in the direction of Pacific Asia without turning one’s back on the United States, while others recommend a strategy more centred on the Latin America continent. The third part, on Africa, also has three contributions, showing in particular that this continent, despite the voluntarism prevailing there in terms of regionalism, is finding it difficult to turn it into a lever of autonomisation, is persistently dependent on external powers, including emerging powers these days, and its regional organisations suffer from overlaps and multiple membership by African nations.
Two parts of the book and no fewer than six contributions are devoted to the dynamics of the European project. To begin with, the ‘sinuous integration process’ characterising the European Community is illustrated, the image of the Union at home and abroad having been weakened today by the migration, energy, economic and social crises affecting it. The contribution devoted by economist Jean-Christophe Defraigne to the roots of the Union’s gaps and shortcomings in the economic and cultural domains suffices in itself to make this book deserve a place in all good libraries/ He observes that an objective analytical approach to the crisis that was sparked in 2008 would reveal that ‘austerity and the transfers are principally explained by the chaos of private banks during the years 2000,’ but the crisis also underscores that ‘the trade surplus and growth experienced by Germany and some of its neighbours’ in the north of the Union ‘are the corollary of deficits of the European periphery, underlining the interdependence and complementarity that would justify financial transfers from the centre to the periphery n this crisis situation.’ Nevertheless, the Union continues, as shown by other authors, to exert an attraction in its neighbourhood, despite the relative strengthening of the presence and influence of Turkey in the region of the Western Balkans and Russia’s desire to co-opt a whole series of countries in the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. The final part is devoted to the development of ‘meso-globalisation’ projects such as the (now defunct?) Transatlantic Partnership, and the way in which regional organisations follow on the heels of multilateral organisations. This book is a remarkably interesting toolbox.
Michel Theys
*** IOANNIS MAZIS: Thèses académiques de géopolitique. 1983-2008 / 2009-2016. Editions Limon (2-4 rue Nikitara, GR-10678 Athens. Tel:(30-210) 3227323 – Email: ekd.limon@gmail.com). 2016, 680 pp. (Vol. 1), 708 pp. (Vol. €20.20 (Vol. 1), €25 (Vol. 2). ISBN 978-618-82668-9-6 (Vol. 1) and 978-618-5259-00-6 (Vol. 2).
Professor of economic geography and geopolitics at the Modern Turkish and Asiatic Studies Faculty of Athens National University, Ioannis Mazis is also the creator of ‘Analyse géopolitique systémique moderne’ recognised in the international library. The academic theses he develops in this double volume cover questions as diverse as the theory of international relations, islamicism, geopolitics and Greek and Turkish relations, the balance of power in the Eastern Mediterranean, and rivalry between State players over the historic long-term in the Eastern Mediterranean. From a systemological viewpoint, Mazis’ scientific research programme is part of the general hermetically neo-positivist framework, which in turn derives from the behavioural model. It is connected with the sophisticated version of behaviourism, namely an updated, more positivist version of the initial behavioural model. As a geographer, Mazis bases his analysis on spatial information, which is examined both in terms of its geophysical and its geopolitical model, in other words in their interaction with the sharing of economic, political, cultural and defensive power of the various state players in the international system of relations to the w/State. Mazis formulates a hermetic model exempt from idealist connotations and characterised by a neo-positivist clarity. On this basis, he makes a number of predictions concerning: a) the hegemony of the German State in the European economic and geopolitical area; b) inter-State tension in the Middle East caused by shortages of drinking water; c) the Turkish States’ neo-ottoman foreign and domestic policy; d) the creation of a Kurdish political society and the realignment of the geopolitical balance in the Middle East; e) the Greco-Israeli approach; and f) a new geopolitical balance in the Middle East, reacting to the over-expansion of the Turkish State.
(AKa)
*** CHRISTOS KATSANIS (Ed.): Les Balkans entre l'Occident et la Russie. Editions Infognomon (14 rue Filellinon, GR-10557 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 3316036 – Fax: 3250421 – Email: info@infognomon.gr – Internet: http://www.infognomon.gr ). 2016, 286 pp, €16. ISBN 978-618-5219-18-5.
The swashbuckling historical heritage of the Balkans comprises Byzantine traditions, Ottoman ambitions, the remnants of various cultures and religions, Western influences and irrational emotional prejudices dipping into the unknown waters of metaphysics and legend. This heritage casts a shadow over the region, generating mutual suspicion that feeds in to vengeful national and social behaviour, creates competing value systems, maintains unrealistic ‘visions,’ forms alliances and in fine outlaws a realistic approach to the common interest based on cooperation and good neighbourliness based on democratic ideals and aspirations for European well-being. Directed by historian Christos Katsanis, this selection of essays focuses on Eastern Europe, which is highly valuable geopolitically and the theatre of a conflict in which the great powers are involved, along with international organisations and regional and local forces. The Balkans is still an explosive cocktail where there are at the same time clashes between opposing visions of the world, religious doctrines, nationalist perceptions, irredentist ambitions and economic and energy interests. The result is generalised anarchy, poverty and corruption, not to mention the existence of pockets of Islamic terrorists. The authors tend to demonstrate that instability will remain the rule here, as the acute demographic problem experienced by most Balkans nations and the recent arrival of an unprecedented wave of mostly Muslim immigrants are aggravating factors.
(AKa)
*** STELLA KIVELOU (Ed.): Les questions territoriales de la mer. La dimension maritime de la cohésion territoriale, la planification de l'espace, la croissance bleue durable. Editions Kritiki (4 rue Papadiamantopoulou, GR-11528 Athens. Tel: (30-210) 8211811 – Fax: 8211026 – Email: biblia@kritiki.gr – Internet: http://www.kritiki.gr ). 2016, 644 pp, €40. ISBN 978-960-586-112-4.
This book arises from the closely-held view of thirty or so researchers that effective planning for the maritime area is needed, along with developing common understanding and vocabulary in this connection. Under the direction of Prof. Stella Kivelou of the Department of Economic Affairs and Regional Development at Pantheon University in Athens and guest researcher at the University of Paris I - Pantheon-Sorbonne, they wanted to contribute to the burgeoning scientific debate in the European Union – and in Greece in particular – about ‘blue growth,’ and also enlarge planning of the maritime area to management of ecosystems, taking account of the geopolitical reality in this domain in the southern Mediterranean. They also incorporate the current debate about the ecological health of the Mediterranean, viz. the need to place markers for a ‘sustainable blue growth’ and ‘sustainable marine space planning’ in the interest of peace, territorial cooperation and prosperity. A broad bibliography is studded throughout the book.
(AKa)