The first chapter introduces blame games as distinct political events characterized by a conflictual style of politics that is different from routine politics. It conceptualizes blame games as litmus tests that allow the understanding of how political systems change and function when they switch into ‘conflict mode’. This chapter then provides a glimpse of the institutionalized forms of conflict management that Western democracies have developed to deal with policy controversies. It goes on to argue that blame games are context-sensitive political events that require a comprehensive but parsimonious framework to study them across institutional and issue contexts. The chapter concludes with a chapter overview and a short presentation of the strategy of inquiry and data used.

This chapter introduces the intrusive regionalism trend and explains why it’s puzzling: It’s happening in the global South (where we expect states to be particular “jealous” of their sovereignty) and it’s uneven (it varies across regions in the global South). It then lays out the methodological approach of the book, which is comparative-historical analysis, and presents the book’s explanatory framework, which seeks to account for the uneven rise of intrusive regionalism in the global South. The theory section covers the changing ideational and institutional context at the global level; the role of macronationalism in creating openings for norm contestation and erosion; and two more proximate factors: regime type and economic performance. Chapter 1 concludes by outlining the plan for the book.