HISTORY OF REGIONALISM AND FEDERATION
Barnes, Harry Elmer
History Of Regionalism And Federation By HARRY ELMER BARNES THE idea of regional federation is nothing new. The Delian Confederacy was organized under Athenian leadership in the 5th Century B. C....
...A common currency and banking system might ultimately be worked out...
...As a result of his propaganda and other pressures, Artistide Briand proposed the federal union of European states within the League of Nations...
...Principal Arguments The theoretical case for regionalism, as over against universalism or a world state, has been set forth by a number of writers, especially since the creation of the League of Nations...
...Tariff walls could be speedily torn down and food and raw materials would be more accessible and available in larger quantities...
...Some Notable Examples The Locarno Pact of 1925 at least anticipated a regional arrangement between Germany, Be1gium, France, and Italy, with Great Britain in benevolent agreement...
...Estonia, Latvia, and" Lithuania came together in an understanding over political and economic problems as a result of the Baltic Pact of 1934...
...There are a number of arguments for regional unions as the next step in political evolution beyond its national state...
...In 1937, a loose regional union of the Near East was provided by the Teheran' Pact involving Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey...
...Since the first World War there have been a number of agreements which savored more or less definitely of regionalism...
...The best opinion regards Hitler's foreign policy as aiming to create a regional economic union of central and southeastern Europe under German dominion, rather than any plan to conquer the world...
...The Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Roumania, and Yugoslavia was formed in 1933, on the basis of earlier treaties...
...The most striking and successful example of a regional federation in history is that of the United States of America...
...In 1922, Nicholas Murray Butler proposed that the world be organized in 3 main regions: Europe and Africa, the Far Orient, and the American continents...
...Its problems are simple, compared with continentalism and universalism...
...Fourth, wars that result from excesses of nationalism and from irrational boundaries, designed to conform to nationalities and linguistic groups, would be eliminated...
...Second, there would be numerous economic advantages...
...From the Greek period until mod-ern times, regional federations were few and ephemeral, the most notable being the Swiss Confederation and the leagues of Italian states...
...A distinguished Chilean publicist and jurist, Alejandro Alvarez, has consistently argued for regional federation in the Americas and has criticized the League of Nations as over-ambitious and unworkable...
...Lynn Thorndike has suggested the organization of the world in 9 major regions, and Ely Culbertson, in his notable plan for postwar peace, has suggested a similar federation through some 11 main regions...
...The Oslo convention of 1930 brought Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium and the Netherlands together in "a loose economic union...
...The second World War has provoked other theoretical proposals concerning regions and federations...
...In 1940, W. I. Jennings brought out a book in which he outlined in great detail a close federation of European states west of Russia, assuming the victory of the United Nations and the triumph of democracy...
...Fifth, regionalism offers some prospect of practical success, which universalism or a world state does not in our time...
...Some of the more important are the following: In the first place, each rational regional union would be based upon a natural geographic area which would provide something like self-sufficiency and access to the sea...
...Prof...
...The fact that the critics of regionalism are able to list many ostensibly insuperable obstacles to regionalism is really an argument in favor of regional organization, as over against any more ambitious form of political unity at the present time...
...The Central American states attempted to set up a federal union early in the last century (1824-1838...
...In 1901, the industrious Russian sociologist, Jacques Novicow, published his Federation of Europe, one of the most closely reasoned arguments and plans for European federation...
...It gradually evolved into the North German Federation, and then into the federated German Empire in 1871...
...Weakness Of The Critics Third, the elimination of tariff wars and more adequate provision of raw materials and markets would diminish the economic causes of war...
...The Delian Confederacy was organized under Athenian leadership in the 5th Century B. C. There were a number of other federations of Greek states, among them the Aetolian and Achaean Leagues, which were formed after the collapse of the Macedonian Empire...
...If we cannot create and operate a regional federation, then what hope is there for creating and operating a world-state...
...Charles Lemonnier, Victor Hugo, and other leading pacifists of the middle of the last century, warmly urged the development of a European federation...
...The most important of these arguments relate to the advantages of regionalism over a system of national independence and international anarchy...
...A customs union, the so-called Zollverein, was formed in 1834...
...In 1934, the Balkan Pact created an agreement between Greece, Roumania, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, for the purpose of maintaining the status quo and promoting better economic relations between the countries involved...
...The German Empire presented an excellent example of the gradual development of a regional federation from beginnings in a loose economic union...
...He recommended the regional federation of Europe, following the general precedent of the United States of America...
...Here, federalism was a slow growth, by which the system was extended" from a small group of states along the Atlantic coast to an entire continent...
...An elaborate proposal for the regional federation of Europe was expounded by an able Austrian publicist, Count Richard M. Coudenhove-Kalergi, in his Pan-Europe, originally published in 1923...
...Walter Lipp-mann's program for the postwar world rests upon a regional pattern of political and international organization...
Vol. 9 • June 1945 • No. 26
