In the age of neoliberal globalisation, regional integration is conceptualised predominantly in economic terms. Power Relations and Comparative Regionalism argues in favour of a more comparative approach, analysing regional integration through the lens of power relations and hegemony.

When examining the forces behind regional integration, orthodox accounts tend to focus on the economic factors which lead states to cede elements of their sovereignty. The European Union is perhaps the most famous example of this. Its original six member states pooled their collective resources to form the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 in a bid to bring political and economic stability to Europe. That project has since created one of the world’s largest and most recognisable regional communities, where member-states are governed (although not always willingly) by strong multilateral institutions.

However, “Project Europe” is not the only integration template available. Numerous other regionalisms exist worldwide, often with vastly different characteristics. Moreover, the majority of scholarly accounts of regional integration fail to consider the impact of factors other than economic pressures on the direction and depth of integration. Power Relations and Comparative Regionalism seeks to address this apparent gap in the literature. Editors Min-hyung Kim and James A. Caporaso have constructed a detailed and well-researched comparison of integration in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, arguing that power relations and hegemony are central to the development of regional integration.

By comparing and evaluating each region through the same lens of inter-state power relations, this work demonstrates how hegemony and the power relations that follow it have had vastly different effects on regional integration in the three aforementioned regions. Often, hegemony in international relations is defined as the military dominance of one state relative to its competitors. This work largely defers to traditional conceptualisations of hegemony, defined by a state’s capacity to lead on the international stage, its willingness to do so, and its access to the necessary resources to entrench its political and economic primacy.

Overall, this narrow conceptual focus works in the book’s favour. Using hegemony and power as the main variable in this volume’s comparative methodology prevents the analysis becoming overextended. It also makes for a more robust comparison of the three regions while simultaneously forging strong links between each chapter. While the European Union is characterised as a community of states bound together by strong supranational governing institutions and cooperation instruments, several chapters note that Asian regionalism has avoided such formal multilateral agreements. Instead, the major regional powers have taken a back seat to ASEAN as the driver of regional integration in East Asia. In Latin America, however, the hegemonic spectre of the United States casts a long shadow over political and economic integration, while Brazil has attempted to become a regional power and exert its own influence over regionalisation.

As one might expect in discussions of hegemony in international relations in the twenty-first century, the US is a predictably omnipresent feature of the majority of the contributions in this volume. Several chapters consider at length the effect of Washington’s established and far-reaching hegemonic influence as both a driver of and hindrance to regional integration around the world. Despite this, while the book does focus extensively on the role of the US in the European, Asian, and Latin American experiences of integration, it does not fall into the trap of focusing solely on US power. In particular, Caporaso provides a fascinating analysis of Germany’s troubled relationship with the concept of regional hegemony, while Mary Anne Madeira constructs an equally insightful comparison of how competition for hegemonic dominance amongst Latin American states has affected attempts at integration in the Americas.

This volume offers a more nuanced evaluation of US influence than as simply an exercise in hard power or coercion. Walter Hatch’s application of constructivist theory to examine the impact of US hegemony on Asian and European regionalism offers a refreshing change from purely realist accounts of Washington’s military dominance. Hatch argues that entrenched racism and distrust of Asian powers led the US to take a heavy-handed, directorial, and far less conciliatory approach to Asian integration than it displayed towards post-war Europe, a strategy made possible by its hegemonic dominance in both regions. This lends weight to the book’s contention that regional integration is as much a product of the political interplay between hegemonic states and middle powers as it as it is the result of economic necessity.

It should be mentioned, however, that the concept of hegemony in international relations is not one-dimensional, but it is somewhat contested. Several chapters make passing reference to critical conceptualisations of hegemony, in particular the definition put forward by Antonio Gramsci. From a Gramscian perspective, hegemony is the result of capitalist elites within the state using their resources to normalise ideology that serves their interests and perpetuates their dominance by co-opting any resistance to the hegemonic project. Nevertheless, the book remains structured around a more orthodox interpretation of hegemony.

As a result, this work has some limitations. Focusing primarily on realist interpretations of hegemony and power relations means that it presents quite a monolithic definition of the geopolitical factors that affect regional integration projects. However, as the Gramscian school argues, hegemony can be defined not solely as the ability of the most powerful state to coerce others to do its bidding, but also as an expression of the dominance of particular class fractions within the state itself. As such, the book does not consider the influence of social forces or class fractions other than the state, such as transnational capital, and what impact they have on the ability of powerful states to shape regional integration projects. Neither does the book examine whether these particular social forces are able to exercise more influence over regional integration projects than other private actors operating within and seeking to influence hegemonic states.

Nevertheless, Power Relations and Comparative Regionalism offers a stimulating re-examination of economic understandings of regional integration. Its comparative approach facilitates a broad discussion of power and hegemony as structural factors that have played a part in the development of regional integration projects across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. While its discussion is at times limited by its comparative structure, Kim and Caporaso’s work makes a strong case for understanding power and hegemony as key factors in the regional integration process, recasting it as both a political and economic phenomenon.

This is a review of Min-hyung Kim and James A. Caporaso (eds.), Power Relations and Comparative Regionalism: Europe, East Asia and Latin America (Routledge, 2021). ISBN: 9780367763794.

Nathaniel Sgambellone is completing his Master of Arts at Monash University under an Australian Government Research Training Program scholarship, and is the Senior Editor of the Young Diplomats Society. His central research areas are international political economy, EU-Africa relations, and the dynamics of global trade.

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