Regional Integration for Persian Gulf : Lessons from the EU

Abstract

Regional Integration has become one of widely debated phenomena in International Relations, with the emergence of the European Union and the development of other regional organizations. International Relations traditionally assume the international system to be anarchic. However, there is a tendency since the latter part of the twentieth century for regions to integrate. As countries are involved in the process successfully, regional integration has become one of significant component of the literature on International Relations. Primarily, regional integration was defined as “a process where by political actors in distinct national settings persuaded to shift their loyalties, expectations and political activities to a new center whose institutions posses or demand jurisdiction over the pre-existing national states” (Hass, 1958:16). The concept of “Regional Cohesion” identifies the regional integration as a combination of several components. For instance, it is discussed whether integration refers to a process or end of product (Laursen, 2008:4). As viewed by Karl Deutsch, “integration is an attainment within a territory as well as Amalgamation”. (Deutsch, 1957:5).In the general sense, “regional integration refers to unification of nation states into lager whole. On one hand regional integration can be described as a dynamic process that entails a county’s willingness to share or unify into a larger whole” (Soomer, 2003:1).The majority of scholars have argued that classical theories of integration had seen the integration as a process which requires many efforts to reformulate integration theory. Therefore conceptual framework of regional integration has become one of debatable discourse to be examined in International Relations.