Introduction

The division of the world into “distinct, disjoint and mutually exclusive territorial formations” (Ruggie, 1998: 173), and the view that territorial borders delimit and structure state sovereignty, have been central to the study of international relations (IR). There are claims, however, concerning the contingent nature of state forms (Jessop, 1999) and the emergence of a “borderless world” (Ohmae, 1993), as forces from ‘above’ and ‘below’ are said to be diluting the essentialized view of territorial borders and challenging the hegemony, legitimacy and institutional capacities of states (Rosenau, 1997). The widening and deepening of global interconnectedness through processes of globalization, advancements in information communications technologies (ICT), emerging transnational regimes and NSAs, and pervasive neo-liberal trends toward privatization, decentralization and devolution of power have contributed to the transformation and diffusion of state authority and the rescaling of governance spaces. Indeed, regionalist discourses assert that the complex dialectic between integration and decentralization has opened new opportunities for sub-national governments and non-state actors (NSA) to engage transnationally (Warner and Gerbasi, 2004), contributing to visions of the “rise of the region state” (Ohmae, 1993), uncovering “new regional spaces” (MacLeod, 2001) and emerging polities “beyond Westphalia” (Blatter, 2001: 180).

Existing literature on regional integration focuses predominantly on supranational levels of integration – be it continental (e.g. European Union (EU) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)) or regional (e.g. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and South American Common Market) – in terms of interstate functional, material and formal ‘top-down’ institutional linkages and interdependencies (Alper, 2004: 79), often to the exclusion of sub-national regions in the borderlands of nation states and identity formation.¹ In contrast, the region known as “Cascadia” – which straddles the Pacific Northwest border between Canada and the United States – is constituted by transgovernmental and non-state networks at the sub-national level that share a history, environment, economy and culture, which contributes to their functional, material and ideational integration based on a sense of shared identity and sense of ‘regionness’ (Policy Research Institute (PRI), 2006).

Informed by the cross-paradigm global governance perspective (Rosenau, 1992: Dingwerth and Pattberg, 2006; Scott, 1999), this essay explores the internal, interrelational and ideational dimensions and forces shaping the Cascadia cross border region (CBR) in order to provide useful insights into the nature, implications and future prospects of Canada-US CBRs.

In doing so, the first section of this essay establishes the governance perspective as the most appropriate lens through which to undertake an analysis of Canada-US CBRs. The second section situates the study within global transformations and literature on borders and networks; it conceptually defines CBRs; and, introduces the analytical framework for the case study analysis. On the basis of these conceptual clarifications, the third section provides an overview of Canada-US CBRs in terms of their economic, socio-cultural and organizational dimensions as a starting point for the comprehensive case study analysis of the Cascadia CBR in terms of its internal, interrelational and ideational dimensions, with a focus on regional transportation issues. The final section discusses the insights rendered through the analysis of Canada-US CBRs, and, the Cascadia CBR in particular, pertaining to the nature and implications of Canada-US CBRs; postulates a potential impasse of ‘bottom-up’ cross-border regional integration in Cascadia; and, proposes recommendations on how Canadian and American national governments may surmount the challenges and harness the opportunities rendered by CBRs.

¹  Literature on European CBRs developed in response to early European cross-border initiatives such as INTERREG in the 1990s and arose out of literature on European integration, frontiers and regional regimes (e.g. Anderson and Bort, 1997; Perkmann, 2002, 2003; Scott, 1999; Keating, 1997, 1998; Ohmae, 1995).