No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
ASEM (The Asia-Europe Meeting): A Window of Opportunity
... Another institutional experiment, the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), created in 1989, remains a consultative forum for trade and investment liberalization—rather than a body that has led to significant liberalization. And the European counterpart to APEC, Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) has remained highly under-institutionalized as indicated by its name and has only been in existence since 1996 (Higgott 1995; Katzenstein 1997; Aggarwal and Morrison 1998; Ravenhill 2002a; Stokhof and van der Velde 1999; Gilson 2004, Hänggi, Roloff, and Rüland 2005). Despite its institutional weakness in a formal sense, East Asia's economic integration, often characterized by its market-driven and informal nature, has been impressive in a practical sense, as indicated by soaring intra-regional trade and investment flows. ...
The traditional institutional equilibrium in East Asia—the embrace of the WTO at the multilateral level and a focus on market-driven, informal integration at the sub-multilateral level—is under heavy strain. Increasingly, East Asian countries are pursuing greater institutionalisation at the sub-multilateral level, weaving a web of preferential arrangements in response to similar strategies pursued by the US and the EU. This article examines the likely path of trading arrangements in Northeast Asia, its implications for East Asia and the future of APEC and ASEM. We propose an institutional bargaining game approach, focusing on goods, countries' individual bargaining situations and the fit with existing arrangements, and allowing an exploration of the evolution of trading arrangements in East Asia. An East Asian trading bloc has both benign and pernicious elements, depending on the ideas and beliefs held by regional actors. The contribution of a prospective East Asian bloc to APEC and ASEM primarily depends on the balance of interests between the US and the EU concerning East Asia. In view of the tremendous political and economic uncertainty in the global economy, the path to freer trade in Northeast Asia, East Asia and the world system is likely to be a bumpy one.
This article explores the ramifications of the European Union’s (EU) internal legitimacy debate for its external relations. It applies the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) as a case study to examine the EU’s attempts to promote legitimacy in global governance, more specifically in interregional institutions. The article’s theoretical framework draws from the EU’s legitimacy debate. It identifies three key sources of legitimacy, namely, (i) input legitimacy or democratic control and accountability, (ii) output legitimacy or performance and achievement of core purposes, and (iii) the degree of common identity as externalised through collective representation and the articulation of shared norms and values. The empirical analysis thereafter leads to three observations. First, the EU’s presence has contributed to an increased democratic involvement by ASEM’s different stakeholders including parliaments and civil society. Second, purely from an institutional legitimacy perspective ASEM achieves its purpose as a forum to ‘constructively engage’ with Asian countries and address issues relating to global governance. Third, ASEM reveals the EU’s dual identity as an intergovernmental grouping and an organisation with a gradually increasing capacity of collective representation. However, the advancement of the EU’s normative objectives through ASEM has been problematic, leading to a more interest-based and pragmatic policy path. The article concludes that the EU’s legitimacy debate has had a bearing on relations with Asia and, in particular, with ASEM. Importantly, and given the EU’s setbacks, some elements of the ‘EU’s way’ have proven successful in promoting democratic notions of legitimacy beyond the state.
Asia has increasingly become a routine part of the educational and research curriculum in Australia, with the consequence that the importance of the specialist skills of Asianists has diminished.
As Asia has become more prominent on the international scene in recent decadesâeconomically, politically, and culturallyâthe scholarly discipline of Asian studies has grown commensurately. But major questions remain about the scope of the discipline and its goals. What about Asia? both surveys the current state of the debate on Asian studies and suggests several fruitful directions for future exploration, especially through the use of multiregional and interdisciplinary approaches.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.