Although regions are becoming increasingly important in the liberalization of international trade, the academic literature has only explored the issue extensively in the case of the European Union (EU). With respect to other regions, little is known of the internal factors that enhance their external performance. This paper uses EU interregional trade negotiations to examine the factors within the EU's counterpart region that contribute to regional cohesiveness and facilitate the conclusion of an agreement. By applying the crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis method to the 13 available cases, this paper finds that the external performance of other regions is not achieved through a combination of homogeneity of state preferences and strong institutions, as the EU literature suggests. While one or other of these factors may be necessary, they only work in conjunction with a favourable power distribution, that is, regional systems formed by a large hegemon and/or small open economies.

中文翻译：

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凝聚力：影响区域外部表现的内部因素

尽管区域在国际贸易自由化中变得越来越重要，但学术文献仅在欧盟 (EU) 的案例中广泛探讨了这个问题。与其他地区相比，人们对提高其外部绩效的内部因素知之甚少。本文使用欧盟区域间贸易谈判来研究欧盟对应区域内有助于区域凝聚力和促进达成协议的因素。通过对 13 个可用案例应用清晰集定性比较分析方法，本文发现其他地区的外部绩效并不是通过国家偏好的同质性和强大的制度相结合来实现的，正如欧盟文献所暗示的那样。虽然这些因素中的一个或其他因素可能是必要的，