Regional organisations come in different sizes and shapes. Size is a product of integration—or disintegration; shape is a product of differentiation. In this essay, we develop two arguments: first, that integration and disintegration are not symmetric processes, as they are impelled by different drivers; second, that integration and disintegration are not necessarily synchronic, as one can progress in the dimension of size while simultaneously regress (or remain still) in the dimension of shape, or vice versa. Building on these two insights, we sketch a sequential framework that applies to both integration and disintegration, two phenomena that have either been studied separately or as mirror images of each other (Hooghe and Marks, British Journal of Political Science 39:1–23, 2009; Vollaard, H. (2018). European disintegration: A search for explanations. Palgrave Macmillan.; Webber, Journal of European Public Policy 26:1134–1152, 2019). The framework proposed here captures different paths and causes of disintegration, which have received significantly less attention than integration.