Being a scholar of International Politics, David Mitrany has both the fortune and misfortune. It is his fortune that we can not ignore his thought when talking about the early construction of European Union. It is his misfortune that his functionalism is simplified to be a theory of economic integration by some scholars without probing into his core of thought. The purposes of this article are to make a complete discussion of David Mitrany and his functionalism and to review some critics with bias made by some scholars. Besides, we can know functionalism deeper by reviewing Mitrany¡¦s attitude toward the two Great Debates in theory of International Relations.

The management of international waterways presents riparian nations with a challenging set of political, economic, environmental, and geographic difficulties. Historically, the Nile Basin has exemplified many of these problems as witnessed by inter-basin conflict, devastating floods, crippling drought, and unstable political and economic development. Despite their tumultuous past the ten riparian nations of the Nile Basin established a supranational water management institution in 1999, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), in order to develop collective solutions to their common water related problems. However, serious challenges to the cooperative process threaten to derail the NBI and enflame underlying causes of conflict. This thesis seeks to determine how the NBI has affected water related decision making in the Nile Basin. This will be achieved by examining patterns of decision-making before and after the establishment of the NBI. Specifically, the impact of the NBI will be tested by examining patterns of decision-making within three measures of conflict, namely the allocation of water resources, the sharing of technical data and expertise, and the financing of water related projects and programs.

This research is based on neo-functionalism to analysis the extent of cooperation in Taiwan and Mainland China in the sector of automobile industry, and how it will affect the government policy between Cross-Strait relations. Since Mainland China to open up its market, there are more and more Taiwanese businessmen to invest in Mainland China. The relation between Taiwan and Mainland China is more closely, especially after accession in WTO. According to the discourse of neo-functionalism interest groups¡]industrial elites¡^and political elites will affect the government attitudes in decision-making. The elite of automobile industry from both sides of Taiwan Straits press both governments to put the policy of ¡§three direct links¡¨ into practice, is the case in point.

In the period of post-Cold War, regional integration is one of the most important trend of international politics, European Union (EU) is the most successful example at present. The EU enlargement to Central and Eastern European countries is a new challenge for itself to run the regional organization. The old EU members would conflict with new EU members for their own advantages. Central and Eastern European countries have broken away from Russia¡¦s control, and expect its modernization will be enhanced by accession to the EU, but the conditions of EU in the area of politics and economy must be reached by Central and Eastern European countries. In this thesis the EU enlargement will be analyzed by Neo-functionalism and Liberal Intergovernmentalism.

<p>Mercosur, som i dag består av Argentina, Brasilien, Paraguay, Uruguay och Venezuela, bildades 1994 i ett försök att förstärka det ekonomiska samarbetet och befästa den omogna demokratin i regionen. Regionalt samarbete inleddes även i avsikt att öka stabilitet och säkerhet i regionen då samarbetet föddes ur askan av en instabil och nedbruten ekonomi. Den dramatiska förändringen från ett inåtvänt militärt styre under större delen av 1900-talet till en liberalisering av både den ekonomiska och politiska sfären, var en annan anledning till regionalt samarbete. Den här uppsatsen behandlar sambandet mellan dessa två fenomen; regional integration och demokrati, och deras parallella utveckling. Den regionala integrationen i området kring Mercosur är annorlunda än andra integrationsprojekt genomförda i världen. Detta är till stor del på grund av den starka statliga interventionalism och presidentialism som historiskt haft en framträdande roll, tillsammans med avsaknad av insyn och brist på civil delaktighet i den politiska sfären. Dessa karakteristiska drag gör det svårt att applicera redan framtagna teorier på Mercosur då dessa främst är utarbetade med hänsyn till Europeiska Unionen. Utvecklingen mot demokrati är betraktad som nödvändighet i förändringsprocessen mot ett förbättrat regionalt samarbete och därmed också regional integration, trots att demokratin fortfarande är begränsad.</p> / <p>Mercosur, which today includes the member states Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay and Venezula, was created in 1994 in an attempt to enhance economic cooperation and consolidate democracy in the region. Regional cooperation was also initiated in order to increase stability and security in the region. This since the integration project surged out of the ashes of an unstable, broken economy and a recent shift from an introvert military regime towards a liberalisation of both the economical and the political sphere. This thesis treats the connection between these two phenomena; regional integration and democracy, and their parallel development. The regional integration through Mercosur is different to other integration projects. Among other things this is due to the strong history of state intervention and scarce civil participation, as well as a prominent presidentialism and a current lack of transparency. This makes the implementation of already existing theories that may explain the development of Mercosur hard to apply, since these theories are developed with consideration to the European Union. The development towards democracy is seen as an essential cornerstone in the shift towards a more cooperative stance between the regional neighbours. Even though democracy in the region still is of limited nature, its emergence promoted regional integration.</p>

After the Cold war, the economic and political cooperations between the regions has gradually replaced the relations between individual countries. European Union and ASEAN are the two regional orginazations in Eurasia which interacte and cooperate through these three organizations: Asia-Europe Meeting, ASEAN Regional Forum, and EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meetings. This thesis is based on neo-functionalism to analyze the cooperation between EU and ASEAN, and study the process of the ramification effects on the sectors of natural resources of EU and ASEAN, and the possible ¡§spill-over¡¨ effect to political and security cooperations. The result of this thesis could be provided as the suggessions for the government of Taiwan making decisions on the foreign policy.

The focus of this research is the relationship between economic cooperation and security regime in the East Asia based on the theory of neo-functionalism. After the Cold War, the economic cooperation in the East Asia become deeper, meanwhile, the North Korea's nuclear problem is still the hotspot in the East Asia. In the process of cooperation in the East Asia, the relationship between economic cooperation and security regime is complementary, which could solve the North Korea's nuclear problem. The process and frame of the relationship between economic cooperation and security regime in the East Asia, will be analyzed in this thesis for offering the government¡¦s decision-making about the possibility of Taiwan¡¦s engagement in the regional cooperation in East Asia.

This study makes an analysis on the modernization process across the Taiwan Straits by taking the garment industry as an example and probes into the background factors of modernization, key points of economic development at different stages, and the non-government exchange as well as economic and trade interaction between both sides of the Straits after Taiwan announced the policy of open-up to allow its citizens to visit their relatives in Mainland China. This article focuses on the analysis of the effects of investments made by the Taiwanese garment businessmen in Mainland China, which promote the transit trade and export of textile materials from Taiwan to Mainland China. After the garment industry of Mainland China becomes prosperous, the production of textile materials is insufficient to meet the demand of the garment industry. Consequently, a huge market is formed to attract the investments of Taiwanese textile industry in China, which not only benefits the textile industry of Taiwan, but also promotes the economic cooperation of both sides of the Taiwan Straits. It is possible that economic cooperation between Taiwan and Mainland China in manufacturing industries such as garment industry, etc. may ¡§spill-over¡¨ to direct ¡§three-links¡¨ between both sides of the Taiwan Straits. This in turn promotes the division of labor in the garment industry across the Straits and expand the bilateral trade and possible political interaction.

The era of economic globalization drove by information technology, but global governing mechanism is still in progress, so regional and inter-regional cooperation are the most welcomed options to shape inter-state relations at present, inter alia, the inter-regional cooperation of European Union and ASEAN. This Research is based on neo-functionalism to analysis the ramification effects of interactions between European Union and ASEAN through the sector of natural resources, economic, trade, investment. and regional development. With the success on functional cooperation, European Union and ASEAN negotiate on the policies which may push the functional cooperation spill-over to political aspects, namely Comprehensive Partnership.

The economical globalization has led the region economic cooperation development. In 2002 Euro was released, the European integration is being made an epoch . US and Canada, Mexico have set up the North America free trade area in 1994, and it will start the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. Under this background, this thesis set out the cooperation between China and ASEAN with the approach New-functionalism. This thesis divides into six chapters to study the cooperation between China and ASEAN cooperate of economic cooperation with the China, the first chapter is an introduction, in the second chapter Neo-functionalism will be explored . In the third chapter, the modernization of China, the evolution of ASEAN and subsquentlly the motive of cooperation from both of them are the major point to be analyzed. Last but certainly not least, whether the Neo-functionalism can be applied to explore the case of the PRC-ASEAN free trade area, will be comprehensively analyzed.