Neo-Mercantilism:

Abstract

This article takes the view that mercantilism can be understood as a pursuit of stateness, an articulation of the nation-state logic vis-à-vis the free play of market forces. The contemporary context of the mercantilist logic is the international political economy, in which `the political' refers to a transnational framework of economic transactions, in brief, a world order. Hence the concept `neomercantilism', to which this discussion is primarily addressed. This conceptualization is somewhat troublesome because of the historical association of mercantilism with the nation-state. The solution to this paradox is to see regionalism as a return of `the political', the need for control, in a transnational context. The argument is pursued in three steps: first the concept is located in the historical political economy discourse, focusing on mercantilism proper; second, a definition of neo-mercantilism is suggested which associates it with `the new regionalism' in a global context, more precisely the pursuit of `regionness'; third, contemporary manifestations of `the new regionalism' are presented as a preliminary attempt to test the hypothesis. In the concluding discussion the significance of these regional manifestations in an international political economy perspective is assessed.