Waseda University Doctoral Student Network (WUDSN), June 10 th 2010

MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF
ASIAN REGIONAL INTEGRATION
Discussant: Dr. Hiro Katsumata, Assistant Professor WIAPS, Waseda University
PRESENTATION 1
Regional Environmental Cooperation in East Asia: From Track 1 ODA to Track
1.5 Business Arrangement
ODAIRA Takeshi
Abstract
Now the concept of East Asian Community is discussed in both the political andacademic realms much more often than the past. Besides, the need of international
environmental cooperation is claimed in the same realms. Therefore, it is meaningful to
produce a paper on the study of regional environmental cooperation in East Asia, as
global frameworks of the environmental cooperation such as UNFCCC have notdeveloped to universally effective means of protecting the environment. This logic isequivalent to that of FTA researchers and policy makers who tend to deal more with
regional economic arrangements when the development of universal trade arrangements
such as negotiations at WTO are much less prospective in its speed of progress. How
does the regional environmental cooperation develop in East Asia? To this researchquestion, a few researchers have given their answers. Matsuoka, Matsumoto andIwamoto (2008) assumed that the track 1 official environmental cooperation leads to thetrack 1.5 cooperation as a part of the first stage of the development of the regional
environmental regime. However, they did not examine how this process in the first stage
proceeds in East Asia. Therefore, it is necessary for the following researchers to conductcase studies to examine the relevance of the aforementioned assumption. This paper
conducts a qualitative case analysis on verifiable official documents and press releases.
The analysis illustrates that bilateral track 1 de jure environmental cooperation such as
ODA is leading to the emergence of track 1.5 de facto cooperation involving thecorporate sector in East Asia.
Takeshi Odaira is a PhD student at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies(GSAPS), and a Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration(GIARI) at Waseda University. He graduated with a Master of International Relations
from the Graduate School Division of Public Administration, International Christian
University (ICU). In his PhD dissertation, he deals with the influence of coordination
among different levels and sectors of actors on the process of peace negotiations to end
armed conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region.

PRESENTATION 2Globalization, Education and Development: a comparison between successes andfailures in the Asia-PacificPramila Neupane
Abstract
Link between globalization, education and development is one of the major subjects ofinterest in the contemporary discourse on international development. Increasing global
interaction and interdependence has expanded opportunities for those countries in Asiawith better levels of education but has made progress more difficult for countries withlow levels of education. Thus, what are the relationships between globalization andeducation in the region and to how important is investment in human resources for
gaining more benefits from the increasing trend of globalization and ultimately for thedevelopment of a country? To answer these questions, this paper compares theeducation, globalization, income and health indicators of successful and unsuccessful
countries in terms of per capita income growth over the period of 1970 to 2006. The
study finds that countries with high levels of education, savings and goodsocioeconomic policies have attracted foreign direct investment and advanced
technology, and have achieved rapid export growth and other aspects of globalization.
On the other hand, countries with low levels of education have found it more difficult toachieve progress. They have experienced very slow growth in per capita income andhave not been able to effectively integrate with the global economy and society. Rather,globalization has made it more difficult to secure investment in education in thesecountries, because government expenditures in the social sector have been severely
reduced to adjust to the negative consequences of globalization. Consequently, thedevelopment gap has been widening in the region. Successful countries have a good
spread of education that leads to high growth and more resources for further educational
development, whereas failing countries have poor human resources that lead to very low
growth and limit their capacity to build up their educational systems. Thus, how tosecure the necessary investment in the education sector in such countries is the urgent
issue for further research.
Pramila Neupane is a PhD Student at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies(GSAPS) at Waseda University.