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Introduction: Asian Regionalism in Comparative Perspective
... ' Scholars of regional organization outside Europe reiterate this analytical insight from 'the other side' , as it were, emphasizing the diversity of regional cooperation processes as a result of distinct historical, cultural, and material circumstances, and lamenting the implicit dominance of the EU as a benchmark. Acharya formulates this line of criticism succinctly: 'a non-EU-centric perspective on comparative regionalism must take into account the distinctiveness of different regions and their institutional designs, patterns, and "styles" of cooperation' (Acharya 2016: 110; see also Acharya and Johnston 2007a;Hurrell 1995a;Katzenstein 1997;Murray 2010;Söderbaum and Shaw 2003;Söderbaum and Sbragia 2011). Yet it is not only in view of the conventional understanding of international institutional change and widespread claims about the distinctiveness of European integration that the institutional developments described in regional organization are puzzling. ...
... Asia is a region with few ROs to this day, not least due to the historic rivalries between China and Japan and specific state-society relations in the region (Calder and Ye 2004;Katzenstein 1997;Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002). ...
How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) shape processes of institution building in other regional organizations? This book develops and tests a theory of interorganizational diffusion in international relations that explains how successful pioneer organizations shape institutional choices in other organizations by affecting the institutional preferences and bargaining strategies of national governments. The author argues that Europe’s foremost regional organization systematically affects institution building abroad, but that such influence varies across different types of organization. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, it shows how the EU institutionally strengthens regional organizations through active engagement and by building its own institutions at home. Yet the contractual nature of other regional organizations bounds this causal influence: EU influence makes an identifiable difference primarily in those organizations that, like the EU itself, rest on an open-ended contract. Evidence for these claims is drawn from the statistical analysis of a dataset on the institutionalization of 35 regional organizations in the period from 1950 to 2017, as well as from detailed single and comparative case studies on institutional creation and (non-)change in the Southern African Development Community, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
... ' Scholars of regional organization outside Europe reiterate this analytical insight from 'the other side' , as it were, emphasizing the diversity of regional cooperation processes as a result of distinct historical, cultural, and material circumstances, and lamenting the implicit dominance of the EU as a benchmark. Acharya formulates this line of criticism succinctly: 'a non-EU-centric perspective on comparative regionalism must take into account the distinctiveness of different regions and their institutional designs, patterns, and "styles" of cooperation' (Acharya 2016: 110; see also Acharya and Johnston 2007a;Hurrell 1995a;Katzenstein 1997;Murray 2010;Söderbaum and Shaw 2003;Söderbaum and Sbragia 2011). Yet it is not only in view of the conventional understanding of international institutional change and widespread claims about the distinctiveness of European integration that the institutional developments described in regional organization are puzzling. ...
... Asia is a region with few ROs to this day, not least due to the historic rivalries between China and Japan and specific state-society relations in the region (Calder and Ye 2004;Katzenstein 1997;Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002). ...
How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) shape processes of institution building in other regional organizations? This book develops and tests a theory of interorganizational diffusion in international relations that explains how successful pioneer organizations shape institutional choices in other organizations by affecting the institutional preferences and bargaining strategies of national governments. The author argues that Europe’s foremost regional organization systematically affects institution building abroad, but that such influence varies across different types of organization. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, it shows how the EU institutionally strengthens regional organizations through active engagement and by building its own institutions at home. Yet the contractual nature of other regional organizations bounds this causal influence: EU influence makes an identifiable difference primarily in those organizations that, like the EU itself, rest on an open-ended contract. Evidence for these claims is drawn from the statistical analysis of a dataset on the institutionalization of 35 regional organizations in the period from 1950 to 2017, as well as from detailed single and comparative case studies on institutional creation and (non-)change in the Southern African Development Community, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
... ' Scholars of regional organization outside Europe reiterate this analytical insight from 'the other side' , as it were, emphasizing the diversity of regional cooperation processes as a result of distinct historical, cultural, and material circumstances, and lamenting the implicit dominance of the EU as a benchmark. Acharya formulates this line of criticism succinctly: 'a non-EU-centric perspective on comparative regionalism must take into account the distinctiveness of different regions and their institutional designs, patterns, and "styles" of cooperation' (Acharya 2016: 110; see also Acharya and Johnston 2007a;Hurrell 1995a;Katzenstein 1997;Murray 2010;Söderbaum and Shaw 2003;Söderbaum and Sbragia 2011). Yet it is not only in view of the conventional understanding of international institutional change and widespread claims about the distinctiveness of European integration that the institutional developments described in regional organization are puzzling. ...
... Asia is a region with few ROs to this day, not least due to the historic rivalries between China and Japan and specific state-society relations in the region (Calder and Ye 2004;Katzenstein 1997;Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002). ...
How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) shape processes of institution building in other regional organizations? This book develops and tests a theory of interorganizational diffusion in international relations that explains how successful pioneer organizations shape institutional choices in other organizations by affecting the institutional preferences and bargaining strategies of national governments. The author argues that Europe’s foremost regional organization systematically affects institution building abroad, but that such influence varies across different types of organization. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, it shows how the EU institutionally strengthens regional organizations through active engagement and by building its own institutions at home. Yet the contractual nature of other regional organizations bounds this causal influence: EU influence makes an identifiable difference primarily in those organizations that, like the EU itself, rest on an open-ended contract. Evidence for these claims is drawn from the statistical analysis of a dataset on the institutionalization of 35 regional organizations in the period from 1950 to 2017, as well as from detailed single and comparative case studies on institutional creation and (non-)change in the Southern African Development Community, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
... ' Scholars of regional organization outside Europe reiterate this analytical insight from 'the other side' , as it were, emphasizing the diversity of regional cooperation processes as a result of distinct historical, cultural, and material circumstances, and lamenting the implicit dominance of the EU as a benchmark. Acharya formulates this line of criticism succinctly: 'a non-EU-centric perspective on comparative regionalism must take into account the distinctiveness of different regions and their institutional designs, patterns, and "styles" of cooperation' (Acharya 2016: 110; see also Acharya and Johnston 2007a;Hurrell 1995a;Katzenstein 1997;Murray 2010;Söderbaum and Shaw 2003;Söderbaum and Sbragia 2011). Yet it is not only in view of the conventional understanding of international institutional change and widespread claims about the distinctiveness of European integration that the institutional developments described in regional organization are puzzling. ...
... Asia is a region with few ROs to this day, not least due to the historic rivalries between China and Japan and specific state-society relations in the region (Calder and Ye 2004;Katzenstein 1997;Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002). ...
How and under what conditions does the European Union (EU) shape processes of institution building in other regional organizations? Interorganizational Diffusion in International Relations: Regional Institutions and the Role of the European Union develops and tests a theory of interorganizational diffusion in international relations that explains how successful pioneer organizations shape institutional choices in other organizations by affecting the institutional preferences and bargaining strategies of national governments. The author argues that Europe's foremost regional organization systematically affects institution building abroad, but that such influence varies across different types of organizations. Mixing quantitative and qualitative methods, it shows how the EU institutionally strengthens regional organizations through active engagement and by building its own institutions at home. Yet, the contractual nature of other regional organizations bounds this causal influence; EU influence makes a distinguishable difference primarily in those organizations that, like the EU itself, rest on an open-ended contract. Evidence for these claims is drawn from the statistical analysis of a dataset on the institutionalization of 35 regional organizations in the period from 1950 to 2017 as well as detailed single and comparative case studies on institutional creation and change in the Southern African Development Community, Mercosur, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The book is freely available for download under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license from the following OUP website: https://fdslive.oup.com/www.oup.com/academic/pdf/openaccess/9780198823827.pdf
... A number of scholars argue that norms about the conduct of regional relationsrevolving around consensus rather than voting, informal agreements rather than legal contracts, methods of conflict resolution, and hierarchy in social and economic ties rather than pluralism -are in fact shared and provide a basis for regional cooperation. Katzenstein (1997) and Katzenstein and Shiraishi (1997) argue that common norms arise from "the distinctive character of Asian state institutions," where the state-society cleavage is fuzzy, the state is embedded in society and constituted by elaborate networks, to which reciprocity is critical to political consensus and legitimacy. With such state systems, state sovereignty cannot be pooled in international organizations constituted by public international law -which presupposes European historical experience and concepts of sovereignty -and gives rise to the distinctively informal character of Asian institutions. ...
... Calder and Ye (2003) refer explicitly to networks when explaining the origins of the CMI, arguing that, among other things, the 1997-98 crisis highlighted the commonality of economic interests and facilitated the establishment of an extensive network of national leaders, bureaucrats and academics. Some constructivists (Katzenstein 1997) maintain that networks are substitutes, in whole or in part, for more formal organizations as underpinnings for regional economic cooperation. ...
... Estos lograron un crecimiento del PBI mucho más rápido, con tasas anuales del 8-9% durante su industrialización acelerada en la segunda mitad del siglo XX (Friedman, 1999;Naughton, 2007). Japón fue uno de los principales difusores de nuevas prácticas y tecnologías de producción a través de la IED hacia Corea del Sur y Taiwán (Katzenstein, 2003). ...
Este artículo examina el ascenso económico de China y sus características institucionales en la acumulación de capital. Utilizando el enfoque de sistemas mundo y la literatura histórica relevante, se destaca la doble autonomía del Estado chino, resultado de la convergencia de procesos históricos: el período imperial tardío y la Revolución China de 1949. Se introduce el concepto de "contrincante semi-periférico" para describir su posición híbrida en la jerarquía de riqueza. El Estado chino moldea y disciplina a los actores capitalistas para ascender en las cadenas globales de valor, alterando su posición en la dinámica centro-periferia. Esta capacidad de imponer transformaciones profundas en la estructura jerárquica de riqueza global distingue a China como agente relevante. El artículo contribuye a la teoría política del Estado y su dinámica en el contexto global.
... A region is a geographical entity consisting of territorial political units linked by ongoing political, economic, security, and cultural interactions and a shared sense of belonging (Adelson 2012;Katzenstein 1997), and Del Sarto, Malmvig, and Lecha (2019) confirm that MENA qualifies as a region. In this view, regions are social constructs shaped by numerous political processes (Katzenstein 2000;Hartshorne 1939;Aarts 1999). ...
... Advocates of "homegrown" IR theory building from non-Western perspectives often point out that those regions that remain marginalized in Western-centric IR (namely Africa, Middle East, Latin America, and Asia) have cultures, worldviews, and historical experiences distinctive from those derived from the modern West. This enterprise of non-Western IR theory building has especially been endorsed by IR scholars interested in the international politics of Asia ( Katzenstein 1997 ;Acharya 2000Acharya , 2004Kang 2003 ;Acharya andBuzan 2007a , 2010 ;Haggard and Kang 2020 ), who share the view that theories, concepts, and norms derived from European experiences and ideas "do a poor job" as they travel to Asia ( Kang 2003 , 57-58). Of course, the rise of Asia in general, and China in particular, in the twenty-first century world politics has added momentum to non-Western IR theory building; ongoing scholarly attempts to build a Chinese IR school or an IR theory "with Chinese characteristics" are a case in point ( Zhao 2005 ;Yan 2011 ;Qin 2018aQin , 2018b. ...
The primary purpose of this article is to advance the ongoing global international relations (Global IR) debate and to offer some possible paths toward Global IR 2.0. To this end, this article first analyzes how Global IR has emerged, what contributions it makes to giving new impetus to IR knowledge (production), and, more importantly, what charges are leveled against Global IR. Although Global IR has produced an important body of scholarship, contributing substantially to identifying West-centrism as a key point of contention in IR and nudging the discipline toward theoretical pluralism, Global IR in its current form still carries the risk of reinforcing the old hierarchical and essentialized structure of knowledge production in ways that are analytic, epistemological, and ontological. Following this critical mapping exercise, I argue that while Global IR can serve as a key signifier of challenge to West-centrism, this important signifier needs to be redefined in terms of what it indicates and means—thereby becoming Global IR 2.0. In onto-epistemological terms, Global IR 2.0 relates more directly to questioning and dissolving essentialized ways of knowing in the discipline. In the final section of this article, I elaborate on how to realize this idea and harness it in practice.
... Abundant literature exists on the merits and limitations of international institutions as a tool of statecraft in international relations. This tool has been variously described as an institutionalist, integrationist, or multilateralist approach (Haas 1964;Keohane and Nye 1977;Keohane 1989;Ruggie 1993;Baldwin 1993), in which a state forges institutionalized cooperation with other countries who share similar values and common interests, either at the regional, intra-regional, or global level (Krasner 1983;Keohane 1990;Katzenstein 1997;. International institutions are multilateral institutions, as three or more countries pursue functional collaboration, economic integration, and/or political and strategic coordination among themselves (Keohane and Martin 1995). ...
... Besides these the 'ASEAN Way' or soft institutionalism support pragmatism, discreetness, informality, consensusbuilding among regional members and non-confrontational bargaining (to avoid the issues of diversity) style. That's why Katzenstein writes that, regionalism based on ASEAN model is a distinctive form of regional institutionalization compared to Europe (Katzenstein, 1997). ASEAN has undertaken various initiatives to support a market driven economic integration after 1997. ...
Southeast Asian Association for regional Cooperation was established in 1967 for the region's socioeconomic development. Now it has been working as a single economic body and has become the sixth-largest economy in the world and third largest in Asia. It constitutes the third-largest population in the world that is effectively connected through physical and digital means. This study aims to develop a theoretical understanding of the concept of regional Integration and to analyze the trends of regional integration suitable for the South East Asian region specifically. It focuses on the ASEAN's Triple-Cs Principle to deeply analyze its journey of regional economic integration. This Principle, basically, describe the existing strategic patterns of economic integration specifically used in the ASEAN countries to maintain their territorial integrity and increase socioeconomic development in the world's most diverse region. It further shows that how ASEAN remained consistently committed to regional integration since its initiation, for that purpose, how ASEAN worked on the journey of regional connectivity. And, How the advancement in the digital arena, is constantly increasing the regional connectivity (through digital means) and has become a backbone for the process of regional integration in the Asian region. Finally, how regional connectivity brings Peace, Progress, and Prosperity in the South East Asia. Further, it also helps to analyze that how much the existing patterns of Asian regionalism are conducive for socioeconomic development. This study is divided into the following sections; the first section briefly describes the central theories of regionalism. In addition, it extensively describes the concept of region, regionalism, and regional integration and the importance of regional integration in the Asian region. The second section of the study explains the details of the Triple-Cs Principle of ASEAN for regional integration. The third section describes how ASEAN followed the Triple-Cs principle during its journey towards regional economic integration in different phases. Finally, it concludes with certain recommendations
The majority of studies on regional formation in East Asia (both Northeast and Southeast Asia) have focused on economic integration and institutional build-up initiated by states. Developments in the field of contemporary society and culture, however, have been largely overlooked. This study seeks to shed light on the way popular culture influences our perception of regions by examining some recent developments in the study of translational dissemination of popular culture across Asian societies. The paper argues that popular culture plays a constructive role in shaping the East Asian region by creating transnational markets for cultural commodities and by disseminating communalities of lifestyles and concepts, which are based on the experience of consuming the same cultural products by different people in different parts of East Asia.
This course explores economic, social, and political changes in East and South Asia through a comparative and historical lens. It examines capitalism, modernization, colonialism, nationalism, socialism, developmentalism, and neoliberalism through the experiences of China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
The economic integration has been the most important agenda since the Second World War particularly in Europe because many European nations were heavily destroyed and ruined. After the severe destruction, European political leaders started to rethink how to restore Europe economically and politically in order to establish a long-term peace in Europe. The two major countries, France and Germany, initiated this based on reconciliation processes and signed on the Elysee Treaty that is legally binding and known as the de jour approach. Unfortunately, East Asian countries, Japan and South Korea took a different path, without reconciliation processes, based on the de facto approach only for economic cooperation. As a result, it is not solid yet, but contains fragile risks for the two countries to cooperate in a sustainable way. This paper investigates how and why Franco-German tandem has played core roles in the EU integration. Furthermore, it argues what are successful factors for Franco-German cooperation. Last, but not least, it analyzes whether the Franco-German model can be adapted for the Japan-Korea economic cooperation or not. Received: 31 January 2024Accepted: 05 March 2024
This review of recent literature on political, economic, and cultural regionalismRegionalism shows that this area of inquiry has become increasingly fragmented not only as a result of debates between the protagonists of different methodological approaches but also because of underlying changes in international relationsInternational relations. Traditional views concerning the state-centric regional system are being challenged by the concentration of political and military powerPower at the top as well as by transnational networks built around economic ties and cultural identitiesIdentity. Early post-Cold WarCold War expectations that regions and regional concerts would form the foundation of a new international order have proven untenable. Instead, regions appear to arise either through the dissemination of various transactions and externalities or as protection against the hegemony of capitalist globalizationGlobalizationand great-power politicsGreat-power politics. Older conceptions of regionalismRegionalism need to be redefined and reintegrated into current international relationsInternational relations theories.
States always function as rational actors as protecting the national interests of a state depends on the choices it makes in the international context. Hence, choices and preferences are central to the study of both public policy and international relations. Policies are driven and influenced by the attention and behaviors of the actors which ultimately create a path to failure or success. In the Bay of Bengal Initiatives for Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), India, in the absence of Pakistan, can enjoy a friendly environment and establish its goal of geopolitical and economic dominance in South Asia and Southeast Asia, while countering China’s continuous upsurge. On the other hand, in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), constant intervention from Pakistan means that India shifts its attention to use its full potential elsewhere. This article is based on secondary sources and illustrates how the interests of a major actor (India) can shape the paths of two similar regional organizations (SAARC and BIMSTEC), despite these organizations sharing characteristics such as the same member states, the same socio-economic situation, and the same vision.
This is an exploratory study, commissioned to develop an understanding of the way(s) in which the knowledge exchange activities of higher education providers (HEPs) and place interact. This includes examinations of if and how place drives particular knowledge exchange activities, and what the potential place impacts of knowledge exchange might be.
There is a sense of déjà vu in the recent Indo-Pacific talk. Twenty years into the twenty-first century, after the interlude of the (US) “unipolar moment”, Asia-Pacific seems to have metamorphosized into the Indo-Pacific, an even vaster expanse. But are we correct in presuming the latest regional construct? Without denying the possibility that it might turn out a useful notion, based on the experience of the Asia-Pacific idea in this article I question the current furor around the Indo-Pacific concept. I probe how the Indo-Pacific region could come into being from three different International Relations (IR) perspec-tives: realism, liberalism, and constructivism. The article is divided into five sections: in the first one I begin by recapping the origins and reach of the Asia-Pacific concept, and then I proceed to trace the origins of the more recent one, Indo-Pacific. In the three following sections I briefly review the three analytical perspectives mentioned (realism, liberalism, and constructivism) in turn, looking at how they would account for the (potential) emergence of the Indo-Pacific. The final section recapitulates and presents some concluding remarks.
Under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China focuses on the ASEAN as part of land bridge connecting China to Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the China-Indochina Peninsula Corridor sea route that is the comprehensive sea route between China, South China Sea, Indian Ocean, and Europe. On the other hand, ASEAN member nations regard the BRI as an avenue to improve connectivity with their poor infrastructure development which will generate trade and investment increase in the region particularly through improved logistics. Accordingly, ASEAN member nations are keen to develop their infrastructure projects in collaboration with Chinese companies and funding agencies mainly in the forms of joint venture. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that the total infrastructure investment needs in the ASEAN from 2016 to 2030 will be between USD 2.8 trillion with baseline estimate to USD 3.1 trillion with climate adjusted estimate. This paper aims to argue how China and the ASEAN can be interacted by the BRI and what are impacts of the BRI on the region. Furthermore, it analyzes which roles do the BRI play in building the region between China and the ASEAN member nations. Last, but not least, it also focuses on Chinese national strategy how to implement the BRI in the region.
Received: 25 August 2021
Accepted: 18 November 2021
Chapter 1 introduces new Asian regionalism as a paradigm shift in international economic law. It discusses three waves of global regionalism with a focus on the Third Regionalism and its unique characteristics. To promote interdisciplinary dialogues, the chapter explores theoretical debates on regionalism and the normative framework of the New Regional Economic Order, which explains the changing North-South relations in the multilateral trading system. In the post-war era, Asian regionalism has been based on the ASEAN-centered regime known as the ASEAN Plus Six framework. Finally, the chapter provides an overview of the structure and objectives of the book.
This book provides the first systematic analysis of new Asian regionalism as a paradigm shift in international economic law. It argues that new Asian regionalism has emerged amid the Third Regionalism and contributed to the New Regional Economic Order, which reinvigorates the role of developing countries in shaping international trade norms. To substantiate the claims, the book introduces theoretical debates and evaluates major regional economic initiatives and institutions, including the ASEAN+6 framework, APEC, the CPTPP and the RCEP. It also sheds light on legal issues involving the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as trade policies of Asian powers, the European Union and the United States. Hence, the legal analysis and case studies offer a fresh perspective of Asian integration and bridge the gap between academia and practice.
This chapter introduces a brief overview of the book and presents the main argument. Accordingly, we start with the defining the goal of the book and research questions. Afterwards, we highlight the importance of the book and its contribution to the academic research and its practical significance related to the role CSTO may play in the post-Cold War wave of the Russia-West confrontation, which became more evident since the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Special attention is devoted to the differences between the western model of regional security governance embedded in the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization and non-western model, which is reflected in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, stressing additional contribution of the book to the study of non-western models of regional military cooperation. Finally, we review in brief previous studies on CSTO and highlight that the shortcomings thereof.
The question whether the IR theories used to analyse and study the Asian region particularly Asia Pacific is relevant or not remains heatedly debated within the field itself. Prominent scholars such as David C. Kang, Barry Buzan, and Peter Katszeinstein, and Amitav Acharya have argued through their works that the study of Asian region is often analysed by IR theories that is dominated by the Western knowledge and experiences. This essay hence would like to examine which theories are the most relevant and useful to depict and explain the dynamic of international relations in Asia, particularly the Asia Pacific. It argues that IR theories that cover the dynamics of international, historical and social relations of the Asian countries would likely the most useful and relevant to analysing the IR of the Asia-Pacific.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have attempted to participate in regional cooperations to serve a variety of purposes of securing their common interest and preserving their new sovereignty in the late 20th century. Establishing regional integration for these states seems popular to continue in the twenty-first century as the leaders of these republics are coordinating policies more frequently and thriving to search ways to consolidate a more developed, law-based and structured regional union. However, although they had already had the understanding and expectation to establish a regional union, they could not establish one which may hitherto bring about practical results and concrete outcomes. Thus, the aim of this article is first to analyze the integration process of Central Asian countries with a regional perspective, and then to purpose a model of Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to these countries as it may offer useful guidance for them. Central Asia states have geographic, linguistic, historical, cultural and economic affinities for regional integration. The study claims that though limited similarities, the ASEAN experience can be as an example for the Central Asia region due to the components of especially geographical affinity and cultural convergence. Not only the aforementioned components but also having similar issues of economic depression, boundary and water problems, armed conflicts and unresolved interethnic matters with Southeast Asian countries may be examples for strengthening the study’s claim. In this article, there are three themes to be elucidated: first, the meaning of region concept, second, the reasons why these republics have not yet established a sustainable regional union, and finally why the ASEAN integration model is appropriate.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan have attempted to participate in regional cooperations to serve a variety of purposes of securing their common interest and preserving their new sovereignty in the late 20th century. Establishing regional integration for these states seems popular to continue in the twenty-first century as the leaders of these republics are coordinating policies more frequently and thriving to search ways to consolidate a more developed, law-based and structured regional union. However, although they had already had the understanding and expectation to establish a regional union, they could not establish one which may hitherto bring about practical results and concrete outcomes. Thus, the aim of this article is first to analyze the integration process of Central Asian countries with a regional perspective, and then to purpose a model of Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to these countries as it may offer useful guidance for them. Central Asia states have geographic, linguistic, historical, cultural and economic affinities for regional integration. The study claims that though limited similarities, the ASEAN experience can be as an example for the Central Asia region due to the components of especially geographical affinity and cultural convergence. Not only the aforementioned components but also having similar issues of economic depression, boundary and water problems, armed conflicts and unresolved interethnic matters with Southeast Asian countries may be examples for strengthening the study’s claim. In this article, there are three themes to be elucidated: first, the meaning of region concept, second, the reasons why these republics have not yet established a sustainable regional union, and finally why the ASEAN integration model is appropriate.
Las relaciones políticas entre Corea del Sur y Japón están fuertemente determinadas por el pasado agresor de Japón en la península. Desde el siglo XV hasta finales del siglo XIX, estos países mantuvieron relaciones de igualdad a través de intercambios comerciales relativamente pacíficos. Este modo de relacionarse fue resquebrajado por la Revolución Meiji (1868). Las ambiciones territoriales del Japón imperialista y la consecuente incorporación de Corea como colonia en 1910, marcaron los límites a la construcción de lazos políticos sólidos y armoniosos. A pesar de la traumática opresión sufrida durante treinta y cinco años, la necesidad de reconstruirse económicamente justificó la censura histórica plasmada en el Tratado del Restablecimiento de Relaciones Diplomáticas Corea del Sur-Japón (1965). Sin embargo, el pasado no se olvida. A partir de los ochenta emerge un complejo escenario de memorias en disputa que ponen en jake el actuar del gobierno japonés. Este artículo analiza las relaciones políticas entre Corea del Sur y Japón desde una relectura histórica de la teoría sistémica del este de Asia de Samuel Kim (2014), y sugiere la necesidad de incorporar un nuevo escenario (o sistema) denominado geopolítica de la memoria, para comprender la compleja situación actual.
The African Sahel is a region whose geopolitical dimensions are constantly changing and evolving as a result of new intersections of international, regional and local security dynamics. In this context, various actors have initiated different regional projects in an attempt to reframe the area according to their interests and specific interpretations of security and to impose the form of order that best fits with their goals. The discursive, normative and material struggle about the definition of the region is having obvious effects on security and conflict, furthering regional instability. This article disentangles the different region-building initiatives at work in the area by identifying the four groups of actors advancing a specific project around the Sahel, namely: (1) international security deliverers, (2) jihadist insurgent groups, (3) regional governmental elites, and (4) local communities and populations. In so doing, it explores how the different spatial and security imaginaries advanced by these four collective agents struggle and interact, and shows that the Sahel can be considered the unintended result of a competitive process that is furthering conflict and violence in a shifting regional security system.
Are the sovereign states of Southeast Asia responsible actors that care and provide for their own as well as their neighbours? Do they act hospitably towards each other? This book examines an embryonic ‘ethos’ of intraregional responsibility among Southeast Asian countries. Unevenly distributed and more apparent in some states than others, the ethic has been expressed as acts of hospitality shown to victims of earthquakes, typhoons and other natural disasters, and increasingly in conflict situations. This sovereign responsibility to provide, or the ‘R2Provide’ as this book calls it, has manifested as forms of assistance – mediated through ASEAN but also bilaterally – given to neighbours coping with economic difficulties, problems of militancy and terrorism and the like. But unlike the global norm of the responsibility to protect (R2P), the R2Provide is noninterventionist in practice. More indirectly, it has also materialised as a mutual reliance by regional states on pacific and increasingly rules-based approaches to manage and, where feasible, resolve their disputes with one another. The contention is not that Southeast Asians have never, whether by commission or omission, behaved irresponsibly or unethically – the region’s belated and deficient response to the Rohingya refugee crisis is but one of many tragic examples – but that they are misrepresented as void of responsible conduct. By way of Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of ‘responsibility for the other’, the book provides an ethical-theoretical explanation for the R2Provide and sovereign responsibility in Southeast Asia.
Examinations of international water treaties suggest that riparian states are not heeding the advice to adopt IWRM. Theories suggest that the larger the number of negotiating states, the lower the cost (per state) of the joint operation of treaties, but the higher the transaction costs of negotiating and maintaining them. We model the trade-off between benefits and costs associated with the number of treaty signatories and apply it to a global treaty data-set. Findings confirm that the transaction costs of negotiation and the economies of scale are important in determining the paucity of basin-wide agreements, the treaties’ content and their extent.
Since the end of the Cold War, the development of economic regionalism in many parts of the globe has been a matter of scholarly debate concerning the forms, instruments, and mechanisms of regional governance. The existing literature has developed around three different emphases, namely the functional objectives of regional economic integration, the nation-state’s strategy in order to survive, and the political and economic sources of regional institution building. These emphases emerged from the international relations theory and have been associated with three different groups of literature: the liberal framework of regionalism (functionalism and neoliberal institutionalism); the realist approach; and the political economy approach respectively. This chapter provides an analysis that finds that these existing approaches have limitations in explaining the social forces that drive the regional economic institution. The chapter shows that it is essential to place the broader structural context of the transformation of capitalist class in defining the economic project at regional level.
In this exploratory contribution focusing on offering local (including regional) perspectives on IR, I have selected the Caribbean, a “region” consisting of numerous small island as well as (in its central construction) a few continental states, which on occasion has been injected into global conflict but in general is perceived as relatively stable. This stability, combined with considerations of scale, has allowed the states to focus on institutional development at a level that is higher than in most areas of the global south. Thus institutionalism is a major criteria defining the region at a formal level. In addition, as small states the “region” is inherently oriented toward openness, which has not only political and economic implications but also important social effects. Besides being an exercise in uncovering what is local in IR for comparative purposes, the paper offers a perspective on what is a “region.” The Caribbean is a constructed region, as Levine (1989) noted long ago, in that that its construction depends on policy or researchers’ foci. This idea of construction is not exactly the same as that of IR constructivists who may reify ideas and identity, in that there is also a material basis to the identification of the Caribbean. However, there is indeed a Caribbean “ identity” which has a practical impact on policy. The paper expands on another paper presented at ISA on Caribbean “Spaces and Places” (2014).
This opening article maps the terrain of the ongoing debate over various forms of ‘non-Western’ International Relations (IR) theory-building enterprise with the aim not only of providing contextual background for the Special Section, but also, and more importantly, of identifying what is missing in the overall debate. It is often pointed out that IR as a discipline is ‘too Western centric’, and that much of mainstream IR theory is ‘simply an abstraction of Western history’. In this respect, many IR scholars have called for ‘broadening’ the theoretical horizon of IR while problematising the Western parochialism of the discipline, and it is increasingly acknowledged that IR needs to embrace a wider range of histories, experiences, and theoretical perspectives, particularly those outside of the West. However, despite such a meaningful debate over non-Western IR theorisation and its recent contributions, several critical questions and issues still remain unclear and under-explored. I suggest that there are (at least) three sets of questions that require more careful attention in our discussion. First, does IR need to embrace theoretical pluralism? Second, to what extent has contemporary IR become pluralistic? Third, should IR pursue the promotion of dialogue and engagement across theoretical and spatial divides? Of course, each of these questions invites several subsequent questions. This discussion will serve as a useful point from which more substantial and exciting bearings may be taken in enriching the ongoing debate and moving IR towards becoming a more pluralistic discipline.
Kelet-Ázsia egy nagyobb, transzregionális hálózat központja, beleértve Óceániát és az amerikai kontinens keleti partvidékét. Az APEC a világ legnagyobb gazdasági tömörülése, a föld gazdasági teljesítményének hatvan százalékát termeli, s az 1990-es évek óta a transzpacifikus kereskedelmi forgalom és beruházások meghaladták még a transzatlantit is. Az 1960-as években Kelet-Ázsiában a régión belüli kereskedelem aránya csupán 25 százalék volt, ám ez az arány a 2000-es évekre 55 százalékra nőtt. Kelet-Ázsia és a pacifikus régióban kötötték az elmúlt években a legtöbb szabadkereskedelmi egyezményt. Ez a folyamat az 1997-es válság után indult fejlődésnek, s 2013-ra már 107 ilyen programnak adott otthont a régió. Ugyanakkor mind a területi és az energiakonfliktusok, mind a biztonsági partnerségi kapcsolatok oly mértékben szerteágazóak, s a térségen kívüli kapcsolatokban is olyannyira változékonyak, ami megnehezíti a térség integrációját. Külön kiemelhető Észak-Korea hátráltató szerepe, mely szintén hozzájárul ahhoz, hogy – a regionalizmus és a regionalizáció mennyiségi fejlődése ellenére is – hiányosnak, be nem fejezettnek tekintsük a térség gazdasági integrációját. Ebben a tanulmányban elsősorban Kelet-Ázsia gazdasági intézményes kapcsolatainak alakulását, helyzetét vesszük szemügyre, s azok történeti gyökereit és fejlődési lehetőségeit vizsgáljuk meg. Ezt követően a térség ingatag biztonságpolitikai helyzetét, annak intézményesülését mutatjuk be, s mindezek gazdasági hatását egyfajta dezintegrációs erőként is igyekszünk értelmezni.
This course examines the economic, social, and political change in major Asian countries from the nineteenth century until today from a comparative and historical perspective. It discusses capitalism, modernization, colonialism, nationalism, socialism, developmentalism, and neoliberalism with reference to the experiences of China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Territorial disputes rarely break out in a political vacuum. They are often fought in an arena where international, regional, and domestic politics meet. For revisionist countries that challenge an existing territorial status quo, the most prominent way to achieve their goal is to acquire the territory in question. The process of acquisition itself can vary from peaceful (e.g., sale or concession of territory) to violent (e.g., military conquest). Most contemporary territorial disputes in East Asia fall between these two extremes: they persist, while neither reaching peaceful resolutions nor escalating into full-scale militarized conflicts.
This article attempts to fill a gap in International Relations (IR) literature on East Asian security. ‘East Asia’ appears to be mostly an indeterminate conceptual construct, allowing scholars to look selectively at those aspects and areas that could justify their security thesis, albeit security dynamics in the region are all too difficult to comprehend and predict. This problem has been frequently pointed out in IR literature, but its methodological implications and suggestions have neither been appropriately illuminated nor been systematically offered, and the main solution commonly found in the literature was the tautological one of ‘better defining’ the region. As an alternative, this article suggests that one needs to tighten geographical focus and differentiate the subjects of analysis. When it comes to the study of East Asian security, one needs to aim to develop specific and differentiated generalizations as opposed to generalizations of a broad character. To showcase the fact that research outcomes can be more determinate when the target of analysis is more focused and specified, this article takes Northeast Asian security as an example and challenges the so-called ‘peaceful East Asia’ thesis, one of the mainstream perspectives on East Asian security. This article ultimately argues that while apprehending East Asian security dynamics through delimiting the scope of analysis and circumscribing the subjects of investigation is often deemed to be a modest enterprise―in particular, in terms of generalizability―the merits are substantial: research outcomes will be able not only to give us a truer mapping of the real world, but also bring us closer to building knowledge which satisfies the scientific criterion of ‘falsifiability.’
The connections between trade and security are hardly new. Analysts and practitioners have clearly recognized this interrelationship since the mercantilist era of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Despite the fact that economic liberals often prefer to separate the political from the economic, it is widely recognized that trade and security are fundamentally interconnected in the foreign policy of states. Over time, as new forms of trade policy have come into being and the international security environment has evolved, the nexus of these two spheres has grown more complex and scholars have struggled to understand their interconnection.
Since the turn of the new century, East Asian countries have taken a series of important steps to launch and strengthen institutional mechanisms of monetary and financial cooperation to enhance the region's resilience to financial instability. Central to these efforts have been the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) and its recent multilateralization, a self-managed reserve pool designed to serve as a vehicle for providing regional liquidity support. Despite the significance of these developments, however, progress toward a common framework of monetary cooperation has been slow, its institutionalization shallow, and its prospects uncertain. Beyond a general consensus on the need for greater cooperation, regional actors remain deeply ambivalent toward the extent and depth of institutionalization. This article provides a critical assessment of the progress made so far, the obstacles that remain, and the prospects for the emergence of a more fully institutionalized framework of monetary cooperation in East Asia. I argue that while the CMI and its multilateralization represent a notable break from the past, fundamental political cleavages surrounding its direction are yet to be resolved, and as a result monetary regionalism in East Asia still remains more of a glass half-empty than half-full.
This article turns existing theories of European integration on their head, exploring the conditions under which they would predict that the European Union will disintegrate, and assessing to what extent these conditions currently exist. It argues that these theories, especially the most 'optimistic' ones, have an insufficiently comparative inter-spatial as well as inter-temporal focus. Combining insights from domestic politics approaches to international relations and hegemonic stability theories, it suggests that the future of European integration and the European Union is more contingent than most integration theories allow. First, they do not take sufficient account of the role of domestic politics in the member states, in many of which the last decade has witnessed a major upsurge of 'anti-European' political attitudes and movements. Second, they overlook the extent to which Europe's uniquely high level of political integration depends on the engagement and support of the region's economically most powerful 'semi-hegemonic' state, Germany. Even though a fundamental reorientation of German European policy at the present time seems unlikely, it is not inconceivable. The European Union has confronted and survived many crises in the past - but has never had to confront a crisis 'made in Germany'. The European Union's current crisis is symptomatic of a broader crisis or malaise of regional and international multilateralism.
Why, we have to ask, have putatively inadequate ‘Western’ IR theories been applied over and over again to explain and understand Asian international relations? How can we develop more satisfying explanations of the international politics of Asia? In relation to such questions, this article demonstrates how academic disciplinary socialisation entails competition and selection, which tends towards the elimination of approaches or explanations that do not fit into the socialised practice, without generating new ones. It is argued here that interweaving existing IR theories with Asia's empirical material and remoulding the theories through gathering empirical evidence on the regional reality and converting it into theoretical variables, comparable in the field of IR, should be our goal. In order to apprehend Asian international relations better and to contribute to advancing the discipline of IR, we need an accumulation of theoretical knowledge sensitive to and attentive to local difference.
The article revisits modernization theory’s convergence claim, which has been strongly criticized by multiple modernists, who maintain that emerging realities have not borne out its underlying premises. Based on a thorough reading of classical texts, the article reconstructs the term’s meaning within a modernization-theoretical frame of reference and then considers the evidence that multiple modernists hold against it. It finds that none of the observations cited by leading multiple modernists are able to challenge modernization theory, which can easily accommodate the kinds of difference invoked by its critics. East-Asian modernity in particular, to which both sides assign special weight for any test of modernization theory, appears remarkably similar to Western modernity when viewed through the lenses of this theory. At the same time, the literature on multiple modernities, despite pleading to take difference seriously, is silent about differences that large parts of the less-developed world exhibit vis-a-vis the West and East Asia in social-structural and cultural respects, indicating different degrees of modernization. The article concludes with a brief note on the differential weight of different kinds of diversity for different reference problems and a suggestion for a constructive resolution of the conflict between the two approaches.
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