The Place of the Region in IR

Abstract This article focuses on the problem of regarding regions as secondary features of the international/global dimension, and on the prevailing geopolitical imagery for thinking about and arguing with regions in IR. However, in contrast with the supposedly value-free vocabulary utilised for discussing regions in IR, the act of defining them in cartographic terms, or as a middle ground between national and international politics, is always a political one. In this article, I explore the politics of scaling in respect of regions and regional politics, and suggest that, if regions are understood as artifacts instead of self-evident entities fitting into a neat framework of levels, and disconnected from political struggles, this would assist the analysis and discussion of regions in theory as well as highlight other dynamics surrounding the complex and varied political projects, geographies and subjectivities that could be characterised as ‘regional’.