Regionalism

Over the last three decades, membership in regional trade arrangements has become one of the most important tools of trade diplomacy. Regional agreements bring a lot of benefits for the member countries through reducing barriers and restrictions. Considering the signing of the Interim PTA Agreement between Iran and Eurasia and its effects, this study aimed to investigate the economic effects of implementing this agreement using the CGE method by SAM 2011. Four possible scenarios were analyzed which included 50%  or  100% tariffs reduction for industry and agriculture sectors and %50 tariffs concession for one of them. The results showed that an average of 50% tariff concession in the agricultural and industrial sectors led to the growth of both sectors and increased the total consumption and welfare in Iran. In the case of 100% tariff concession, the growth of agriculture and industry will be much higher and higher welfare and total consumption will be observed. Policymakers are advised to pursue FTA between Iran and EAEU for achieving the best results. The creation of a joint financial mechanism and a database of Member States' traders, the issuance of business visas, and the establishment of a Eurasian Chamber of Commerce Joint Council are recommended.

Regionalism is an analytical and critical perspective which focuses on preserving special features of place and attempts to fill the vacuum in architecture. Globalization is a complex multi-stage process that causes increasing complexity of time and place, greater awareness across the global and acceleration of cross cultural interactions. Therefore, the present paper attempts to analyze global-regional interactional approach through investigating contemporary Iranian architecture in relationship with the aforementioned phenomena and also tries to provide practical advice on establishing a constructive interaction. The research methodology is based on content analysis and case study. The results obtained from investigating striking cases of 4 eras of contemporary Iranian architecture and presented as a table of global-regional interaction components (physical, semantic and ecological) show that an interactional approach is becoming increasingly popular and global-regional coexistence is being formed in contemporary Iranian architecture, which associates with spirit of time and its regional components. A dynamic presence and playing a componential role by contemporary Iranian architects in this interaction have some prerequisites: an understanding of contemporary pluralism, an understanding of the other and establishing interaction, emphasis on the role of thought, creation and innovation, objective research, a good understanding of identity and place, past recall and identifying components of Iranian architecture.

Regionalism and regional integration are among the central doctrines of states to strengthen and develop themselves in the new age. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the power vacuum, Russia sought to rebuild the regional order and reshape the regional geopolitical system in Eurasia. From the beginning of the Vladimir Putin era (1999), Eurasianisism became the focus of Russian foreign policy. The most crucial strategy of Russian Eurasianism became Eurasian Regionalism. After several stages of the regionalism process (Eurasian Economic Community, Single Economic Market, Customs Union), Russia finally succeeded in establishing the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) consisting of Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Armenia, and Kyrgyzstan in early 2015. The EAEU is the most developed institution of regional economic integration among post-Soviet states. The objective of this study is to evaluate Russia’s regionalism policies and explain Russia’s intentions to establish the EAEU in the new era. The research results show that the first priority of Moscow from the establishing of the Eurasian Economic Union is security, political and geopolitical issues. Otherwise, economically, this Union does not have a significant achievement for Russia. The member states of This Union are not an appropriate economic complement to each other.  

The Three Seas Initiative harks back as another version of strategic integration in the Central and Eastern Europe. Based on the Neofunctionalism, a functional-based regionalism is expected to take roots in the region with the spillover effect into the political and institutional levels; therefore, the main question of the research study is: what is the effect of the EU on the regionalism in the Central and Eastern Europe? The hypothesis of this research states that the EU’s highly developed institutional arrangement has led to a specific type of regional arrangement to take place in the CEE under the Three Seas Initiative, which lacks highly supranational institutionalism, even though it maintains high functional and political dimensions. The main research question was investigated using the qualitative method, namely descriptive method within the theoretical framework of Neofunctionalism. Results indicate that while Central European regionalism is under the effect of political and functional spillover as well as spill-around in institutionalization, the divide between Central European conservative and Western liberal values has been used by Eurosceptic parties to accelerate the process.