Comparing the Constituting of Higher Education Regionalisms: Insights into European, Latin American, South East Asian and the Gulf Cooperation Council Regionalisms

In this paper I compare four regionalizing projects (European Higher Education Area, Mercosur, South East Asian regionalism, Gulf Cooperation Council) in different geo-strategic spaces which mobilize higher education as a mechanism for producing new institutional arrangements, social relations and outcomes. These unfolding projects, though distinctive in their logics, dynamics and interests, are also shaped by region-building in other parts of the world, and by newer inter-regional projects. In comparing these different projects and spaces, I show that region building is, as Hettne argues, constituted through both exogenous and endogenous processes. I also argue that scholars of both regional integration and international relations have neglected this sector, and that it offers a unique window into the different strategic and structural dynamics at work.