Abstract

This dissertation discusses the role regional cooperation may play in informing and defining national development planning. It takes a multidisciplinary approach to analyzing the various factors that contribute to countries' interest in regional agreements, stressing the reflexive interactions of local and global/national and regional/public and private partnerships for development. In positing its main thesis, that regional associations may act as "mediating institutions" for change in the world order, it emphasizes a holistic approach that seeks to explore and explain relationships between states and societies in an age of increasing globalisation. Part One includes chapters on regional integration/new regionalism theory, trade and economic development and links these to international relations theory, focusing mainly on complex interdependence-international society approaches, which combine elements of both realist and idealist explanations. The case study in Part Two concerns Jamaica's participation in the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) as well as the European Union (EU) - Africa/Caribbean/Pacific (ACP) Partnership Agreement, which is based on pillars of regional cooperation and capacity-building to facilitate integration of developing countries into the world economy. It concentrates on the potential such negotiations between states and regional entities may offer for identifying and implementing a reformed world order that is more conducive to equitable human development. The combination of the theory of Part One and the partnership trade-development model in Part Two supports the main argument for viewing regionalism in the South as having transitional and transformational goals at both the local and international level. The final chapter then promotes a prescription for "strategic regionalism", which stresses pro-active and dynamic approaches to national planning for small open economies, as the most promising path towards improved outcomes for development through international cooperation.