Levels of Regionness

What shall we then understand by "regionness"? It means that a region can be a region more or less.
There are five degrees of "regionness":
1. Region as a geographical unit, delimited by more or less natural physical barriers and marked by
ecological characteristics: "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals", "Africa south of the Sahara" or "the
Indian subcontinent". This first level can be referred to as a "proto-region", or a "pre-regional zone", since
there is no organized society. In order to further regionalize, this particular territory must, necessarily, be
inhabited by human beings, maintaining some kind of relationship. This brings us to the social dimension.
2. Region as social system implies trans-local relations between human groups. These relations constitute
a security complex, in which the constituent units, as far as their own security is concerned, are dependent
on each other, as well as the overall stability of the regional system. Thus the social relations may very
well be hostile. The region, just like the international system of which it forms a part, can therefore be
described as anarchic. The classic case of such a regional order is 19th century Europe. At this low level
of organization, a balance of power or some kind of "concert", is the sole security guarantee. This is a
rather primitive security mechanism. We could therefore talk of a "primitive" region.
3. Region as organized cooperation in any of the cultural, economic, political or military fields. In this
case, region is defined by the list of countries which are the formal members of the regional organization
in question. In the absence of some kind of organized cooperation, the concept of regionalism does not
make much sense. This more organized region could be called the "formal" region. It should be possible
to relate the "formal region" (defined by organizational membership) to the "real region" (which has to be
defined in terms of potentialities and through less precise criteria) in order to assess the relevance and
future potential of a particular regional organization.
4. Region as civil society takes shape when the organizational framework facilitates and promotes social
communication and convergence of values throughout the region. Of course the pre-existence of a shared
cultural tradition in a particular region is of crucial importance here, but culture is not only a given but
continuously created and recreated. However, the defining element here is the multidimensional and
voluntary quality of regional cooperation and the societal characteristics indicating an emerging "regional
anarchic society", that is something more than anarchy, but less than society.
5. Region as acting subject with a distinct identity, actor capability, legitimacy and structure of decisionmaking. Crucial areas for regional intervention are conflict resolution (between and particularly within
former "states") and creation of welfare (in terms of social security and regional balance). This process is
similar to state formation and nation building, and the ultimate outcome could be a "region-state", which
in terms of scope can be compared to the classical empires, but in terms of political order constitutes a
voluntary evolution of a group of formerly sovereign national, political units into a supranational security
community, where sovereignty is pooled for the best of all.
The five levels may express a certain evolutionary logic, but the idea is not to suggest a stage theory but
to provide a framework for comparative analysis.

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