Regional cooperation and political stability and prosperity

Regional cooperation takes a number of forms. Types of formal regional cooperation include preferential trade agreements, free trade agreements, customs unions, common markets, economic unions, economic and monetary unions, full economic integration, and political unions (Marinov, 2015, pp. 24-25). The literature identifies a number of benefits and risks of regional cooperation. While the literature search conducted for this report did not find evidence that there is a direct link between regional integration and economic growth, the evidence does suggest that regional integration still has a positive impact on growth in member states via the effects of increased trade and investment. benefits and risks are however dependent on a range of variables. These include the political and economic nature of the countries engaging in integration, the size of the countries integrating, the political will of member states for increased integration, and their capacity to implement integration. These factors therefore have to be taken into account when considering the impact on prosperity and political stability of individual regional cooperation agreements. There is a considerable body of literature on the impact of regional cooperation on prosperity and political stability. The literature consists of books, peer-reviewed journal articles and policy papers. The studies considered in this review use both qualitative and quantitative methods. While many ways in which regional integration affects prosperity and political stability are identified in the literature, there is often a lack of rigorous evidence to support these findings. The literature identified during the course of the research was largely ‘gender-blind’.