Social Dimensions of Regional Integration - A High Level Symposium: Conclusions

The aim of this symposium was to analyse the social dimensions of regional
integration policies. It was suggested that policy orientated social science could help
identify the potential advantages for countries of taking further steps towards the
development of regional social policies. Increasingly regions might be considered an
emerging space between the national and the global for the formulation and
implementation of such policies. The context of this focus on the regional level was
the absence of a social clause in global economic and financial polices and
disagreements between countries as to how to reconcile economic openness with
social standards. One strategy to achieve a socially just globalization might be to
enhance the role of regions. The symposium was contextualized by two background
papers commissioned from the United Nations University (authored by Luk Van
Langenhove) and the Globalism and Social Policy Programme (GASPP) authored
by Nicola Yeates and Bob Deacon.