ISS Comparative Regionalism Project

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Explaining Regionalism:
A Brief Overview
CREP Seminar 1
Gregory W. Noble
Institute of Social Science
University of Tokyo
May 2005

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noble@iss.u-tokyo.ac.j

Explaining Regionalism: A Brief Overview

Gregory W. Noble
Institute of Social Science
University of Tokyo
May 2005
The last decade has witnessed an upsurge of interest in regionalism, sparked by
the deepening of existing agreements such as the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) and the European Union (EU), and the proliferation of new
regional arrangements in East Asia, including the ASEAN Plus Three (Association ofSoutheast Asian Nations plus China, Japan and Korea). Already most of the European
Union is linked by a common currency, the Euro, and proposals for regional cooperationin currency issues abound. Regional integration is a hot, if controversial, topic in
Japan, where a succession of prime ministers has advocated aggressive policies to form
an East Asian Economic Community (Terada 2003; Taniguchi 2004).
How, and how well, can political scientists explain these developments? And
what areas would reward further research? A brief overview of recent work on
regionalism suggests that the answer to the first question appears to be “not verysatisfactorily.” The solution is less clear, but research that examines regionalism not
only in comparative perspective but also as an intertwined phenomenon is called for:regionalism in Europe and (to a lesser extent) North America clearly affects regionbuilding efforts elsewhere, and the growth of regional ties in one area—trade, or finance,or environmental protection, for example--is likely to affect developments in other issue
areas.
Much research on regionalism has focused on trade, especially tradeliberalization, as opposed to trade facilitation, largely because regional agreements inthe area of trade are more numerous and more clearly defined than in many other areas.
The most obvious hypotheses to explain regionalism, such as those derived frominterest-group demands, or changes in the international distribution of militarycapabilities, do not seem particularly powerful. Unfortunately, the proliferation of
hypotheses tends to outpace the development of techniques and data sets to determine
which hypotheses are more plausible. And more centrally, social science lacks good,strong theories that can explain regionalism. One response would be to reject thestudy of regionalism altogether as a meaningless category for social scientific analysis.
Given the real-world significance of regional initiatives, however, that tack is unlikely
to be sustainable, as the current deluge of work, however tentative and theoreticallycontested and constrained, testifies.
One suggestion is to devote more attention to the ways in which various typesof regionalism are nested and intertwined. For example, how does the creation of acurrency bloc, or even a regional decision to establish informal pegs to a trade-weighted
basket of currencies rather than relying solely upon the dollar, affect initiatives in trade,investment or other areas? To what degree does regional cooperation in security
constrain or enable economic regionalism? And how do various regions, however
defined and constructed, interact with or learn from each other, and particularly Europe?
The implication, however, is that it research on regionalism is likely to remain messy.
It will be difficult to devise neat social scientific theories of the kind that can be created
and tested against electoral outcomes or public opinion polls.
Regionalization and Regionalism
Despite the difficulties of adjudicating contentions over causality, on somebasic issues of definition and historical development, the political science literature on
regionalism displays a fair degree of consensus. One basic area of general agreement
involves concepts and typology (in contrast, for example, to the messy proliferation ofconcepts and terms describing democracy [Collier and Levitsky 1997]). Most authors
have accepted the convention that regionalization refers to the “natural” increase anddeepening of regional interactions in the form of trade, investment, finance, tourism,
dissemination of popular culture, drug trafficking, prostitution, regional pollution andthe myriad of other ways in which activities in or by the peoples of one state affectthose in neighboring states. In contrast, regionalism refers to agreements bynation-states, sometimes in concert with various societal groups, to engage in formal orsemi-formal agreements to manage or accelerate interactions with regional neighbors.
Though the two processes are intimately intertwined, most authors accept the value ofmaking a conceptual distinction between the “bottom-up,” uncoordinated, and usually
evaluatively neutral process of regionalization, and the more directed, “top-down”
concept of regionalism, with its frequent implications of the development or deepeningof common identities and aspirations (see e.g. Mansfield and Milner 1999; Kim 2004:
66; Pempel 2005: 6). Most researchers also accept the proposition that global andregional integration may proceed simultaneously, and may stimulate each other in apositive-sum fashion. Re-creation of the kind of hard-shelled and mutually hostile2

regional blocs that proliferated in the pre-war period, undermining global cooperation,
seems unlikely (Frankel and Kahler, eds. 1993); the EU and the World Trade
Organization have coexisted quite comfortably.
Rough agreement also seems to characterize historical periodicization, which
has not been particularly contentious. Writing at the end of the 1990s, Mansfield andMilner (1999) identify four such waves of regionalization:
1. 1850-1890, mostly in Europe. Led by industrialization, but disrupted by World War
I.
2. 1920-World War II. More preferential, often encompassed colonies, including
formation of Commonwealth preferences in 1932.
3. Post-WWII: big increases in regional trade, especially in Europe (institutionalized)
and East Asia (despite lack of institutionalization). More than half of all world trade isconducted among nations belonging to preferential trade agreements, and almost all
nations belong to at least one (p. 601).
a. Late 1950s-1970s (esp. 1970s): decolonization, cold war, distributive conflicts.
b. 1990s-: End of cold war, U.S. support, high levels of interdependence, continued
viability of GATT/WTO, and (unlike in earlier periods) regional unification used asmeans to solidify economic and democratic reforms (p. 601)
Since the 1990s, most researchers believe that the growing interest in regionalarrangements has been accelerated by the perceived slowdown at the WTO, whereconflicts between advanced countries, particularly the United States, demanding moreaggressive liberalization, and developing countries (and developed countries with weak
agricultural sectors, such as Japan) have grown (e.g. Kawai 2005), though others insist
that the GATT/WTO process has never been completely smooth, and the example orpressure from Europe and later North America was more significant in its touching off adomino effect (Baldwin 1997).
As with definitions and history, a fair amount of agreement exists on some of
the important dimensions of the organization of cooperation (though there is lessagreement on the consequences and especially the causes). Inter-governmental
negotiations are commonly contrasted to second track discussions by private figures andgovernmental figures working in a non-official capacity. Once established, a major
marker of institutionalization is the creation and strengthening of a secretariat. The
range of variation is vast, ranging from central administrative organizations employing
thousands in Europe to regional organizations that avoid establishing secretariats
altogether or deliberately shackle them. The oddly named Asia-Pacific Economic3

Cooperation (APEC), to which journalists typically affix the noun “forum” or“process,” not only lacks a strong secretariat, it even lacks even a grammatically
acceptable title. At least as important as formal secretariats is the degree to which
formal rules are established to guide, monitor and enforce behavior. The question ofwhether regional laws can overcome national laws has become intensely debated inEurope, where fear of faceless bureaucrats in Brussels has grown, and in NAFTA,
where the attachment of many American conservatives to the U.S. Constitution (not tomention American national power) has made them reluctant to cede authority to
supra-national bodies. Ironically, that fear is shared by many leftists who worry thatpowerful multinational corporations will be able to bend decisions in their favor moreeasily in distant and secretive deliberations of regional bodies than in the political lightof national legislatures.
Over the last half-decade or so, researchers have devoted considerable attention
to issues of organization and legalization. Some note that informal, consensus-based
regional organizations lacking in binding rules and organized secretariats are ubiquitousand that informality has its advantages; Europe is very much the outlier (Solingen 2005).
Ravenhill’s (2001) study of APEC, however, notes the great difficulties organizations
have in persuading their members to undertake politically sensitive tasks such as
liberalization when capacities to define terms, monitor behavior and impose penalties
are virtually completely undeveloped. MacIntyre and Naughton (2005) put adevelopmental spin on this debate: informality may be inevitable and even useful in the
preliminary stages of regional cooperation, but at some point formal institutions become
prerequisites to further progress—as in the case of East Asia since the Asian financial
crisis of 1997-98 and the great flowering of regional trade over the last decade.
Unfortunately, detailed empirical investigation and careful comparisons acrossorganizations, issue areas and time periods is just beginning. A preliminary survey oflegalization by Kahler (2000) suggests that variation on all these dimensions remains
very great indeed.
Formal quantitative studies have tended to focus on one of the few areas withreadily available comparative data: preferential trade agreements (most but not all ofwhich have a regional cast) as defined by Article XXIV of the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and reported to the World Trade Organization. Milner(1997), for example, emphasizes that some corporations find preferential agreements
attractive ways to expand economies of scale while avoiding full-scale competition.
The results remain somewhat preliminary, however, and the actual role of corporate
lobbyists in the policymaking process remains under explored. In particular, the4circumstances under which corporations would prefer regional to global liberalization
remain obscure (Mansfield and Milner 1999).
The broad outcome of these studies is that Europe is overwhelmingly moreorganized and legalized than all other regions. It is the standard by which others areroutinely measured, but its very success may create unrealistic expectations. NAFTA,in contrast, is highly organized in some ways (the agreement itself is certainly long anddetailed), but far narrower. East Asia is generally seen as a failure in comparison toEurope, though as noted above, Europe, not Asia, is the outlier, and moves toward
greater formalization in East Asia have accelerated in recent years.
Explaining Regionalism
1. Liberal Neo-functionalism.
The oldest and still most prevalent category of explanations focuses on the role of risingexternalities (regionalization, especially of the economic variety) in creating incentives
for regionalism. In most accounts, unplanned and uncoordinated activities by private
actors, particularly large corporations, present states with dilemmas or opportunities, but
in some versions, corporate executives and others actively pursue regionalism as ameans to stimulate potentially profitable opportunities. Increasing flows of trade,investment and financial transactions across borders but within some particular region
may give rise to destabilizing flows of immigration, cross-border pollution, conflicts
over water, pressure on electricity grids, public health risks and other problems. A
demand then arises for regional organizations to serve as solutions to the collective
action problems created by increased cross-border flows, though the form and degree offormalization may vary greatly (Pempel 2005). As countries within a region trade
more intensively, for example, the conditions for an optimal currency region may be
met, leading to demands for enhanced monetary cooperation, though states will havestrong incentives to maintain exclusive currencies and private forms of money will
proliferate, so that the formation of significant new regional currencies such as the Eurois likely to remain exceedingly rare (Cohen 2003: 178).
The cast of players pushing regionalism in the neo-liberal account issurprisingly diverse. First and foremost are multinational corporations, financial
companies, and related interest groups seeking either to ameliorate problems withongoing international transactions or to promote new transactions. Government
officials in a wide variety of functional areas—public health, transportation, customs,
and labor, for example—also may become involved as international responses become
prerequisite to addressing domestic problems.
Scientists, lawyers and other5professionals may also find that cross-border flows increasingly impinge on their work,
and impel them to seek regional solutions. Spillovers from one area may propel
progress in related areas (Haas 1958). Once repudiated even by its founders as
excessively technocratic and teleological (Haas 1975), neo-functionalist approaches
remain extremely influential (Sandholtz and Stone Sweet, eds. 1998).
An enduring question with which neo-functionalist accounts have struggled,
even in Europe, is why regionalism—why not globalism, since many cross-borderproblems (trafficking in drugs or sex workers, for example) may not respect regionalboundaries any more than they do national ones? The most obvious answer isefficiency. Particularly in Europe, though less so in Asia, regional cooperation
involves fewer actors, fewer issues (tropical diseases can largely be ignored in the
Scandinavian countries, for example) and greater homogeneity of actors. Regional
cooperation in Europe enjoyed the inestimable advantage that all participants wereconsolidated democracies; most of the world’s established democratic regimes are inEurope, and formerly authoritarian regimes such as Portugal, Spain and Greece were
excluded until they democratized; similar dynamics developed in Eastern Europe.
Economic systems in Europe were roughly similar, gaps in economic development,
though not inconsequential, were much smaller than in most other regions of the world,and European countries shared a common (though not identical or entirely uncontested)
sense of history and identity as inheritors of the traditions of Greece and Rome. The
leading countries in Europe were also roughly balanced in size and power: Germany
was larger than France, but the constraints of its recent history and the continued
presence of the United States in Europe removed fears of German domination. The
economies of Italy and Spain (after democratization) were somewhat smaller, but they
grew more rapidly and began to close in on the largest countries.
Another explanation for the preference for regional over (or in addition to)
global cooperation is Baldwin’s (1997) domino effect. Once an economic region
forms, exporters in excluded countries or regions will be disadvantaged by the drop in
costs enjoyed by competitors based in the integrating region. Excluded firms(countries) will seek to attain economies of scale without making them available tocompetitors outside the region. Thus, Sandholtz and Zysman (1989) argue that theperceived success of Japanese corporations in Asia and North America provided a major
stimulus for European firms such as Philips (headquartered in the Netherlands, with apopulation of only about fifteen million people) to push for enhanced European
integration to expand markets without making them equally available to Japanesecompetitors. Similarly, building on Milner’s (1997) work on the preferences of6multinational corporations, Chase’s (2003) study of NAFTA concludes that “regionalarrangements are an attractive mechanism to liberalize trade for firms in need oflarger-than-national markets to take advantage of economies of scale or to develop
production-sharing networks.” These results are plausible, though it is not clear thatlobbying by those particular corporations actually was crucial to the lobbying process.
The logic is also vulnerable to the riposte that Japanese (and other) foreign companies
from outside the region can form Free Trade Agreements (FTA) of their own with one
or more member states to neutralize regional arrangements. And in fact, after tiny
Singapore, Japan signed its first FTA with Mexico precisely to gain backdoor entrance
to the much larger American and Canadian markets (Solis 2003). More generally,
Mansfield and Reinhardt (2003) find considerable statistical support for the proposition
that various elements of the global GATT/WTO system itself give corporations an
incentive to enter into FTAs (primarily though by no means exclusively regional incharacter) in order to enhance their bargaining power at the global level. This is aparticularly vivid illustration of the broader theme that globalism and regionalism are
not always in tension.
Once established, a regional organization may take on a life of its own.
Agencies and individual bureaucrats will develop incentives to expand theirjurisdictions (though a sense of commitment to core agency mission may limit thedegree of bureaucratic imperialism), and will tend to develop ties with local
governments and interest groups. Sandholtz (1993), for example, argues that theunusually strong statutory powers and considerable technical capacities of the European
Commission enabled it to play an important leadership role in stimulating thedevelopment of the European telecommunications industry. Similarly, even absent
bureaucratic incentives, the ethos of regional cooperation may well become a kind ofregional hammer that searches out collective problems to which further institutional
development might be the answer. Once again, though, Europe seems to be theexception, as few other regional organizations have developed capacities that can begin
to match (or harmonize with) member states or the large companies headquartered inthem.
Arguments about the leadership role of the European Commission are
frequently met with skepticism or counter-arguments (often as much normative as
positive) about the dangers of bureaucracy. Particularly importantis the argument that national leaders have played a crucial role in furthering regional
integration, usually in conjunction with leading corporate interests and occasionallyother social groups. The leading exponent of this approach is Andrew Moravcsik

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(1998), whose “liberal intergovernmentalist” interpretation downplays the independent
influence of transnational entrepreneurs and accentuates the actions of the politicalleaders of the largest member countries. Economic interests and asymmetricalinterdependence impelled European leaders to negotiate region-wide cooperation, while
the necessity to establish more credible commitments to sustained cooperation pushed
leaders to create substantial regional institutions. Similarly, Milner (1997) emphasizes
that political leaders play “two-level games” in which regionalism takes back seat todomestic politics, which is not always positively disposed toward regional cooperation.
Regional cooperation, then, can come to seem a tempting solution to national
ills afflicting political leaders who could never hope to institute major changes at the
global level. Thus, for center-left leaders worried about the corrosive effects ofinternational competition on the Keynesian welfare state, European cooperation could
become rich soil in which to anchor social programs. In Japan, Hatch (2002) argues
that Asian regionalism became a new outlet and justification for the “administrative
guidance” traditionally wielded by elite Japanese bureaucrats in the finance and tradeministries but increasingly threatened at home by liberalization and administrativereform. In the case of Singapore, the tiny size of the national territory and population
gave strong incentives to the political leadership to beef up regional institutions inwhich Singapore, by virtue of its sophisticated economy and highly educatedbureaucracy, could play an outsize role. In contrast, the leaders of the United States andUnited Kingdom, with their large economies, strong currencies, and world-leading
financial sectors, tended to look to global rather than regional institutions to shore up
and expand the neo-liberal approaches to economic policy favored at home. The
United States embraced NAFTA and fitfully signaled interest in a broader tradingarrangement throughout the Americas, but it saved its greatest attention for global
institutions, ad hoc coalitions, or unilateralism. Finally, regional cooperation may be
used as “honey” to induce cooperation and good behavior by less developed regionalcountries. Thus, expansion of the European Union became a powerful lever toencourage reforms in Turkey and potential new member countries in Eastern Europe.
A variation on the theme of national political leadership posits that regional
crises can become powerful stimuli for cooperation (Calder and Ye 2004). The mostvivid recent example, of course, is the Asian financial crisis, which researchers almost
unanimously cite as a major stimulus for proposals to deepen economic cooperation in
East Asia (see e.g. Kawai 2005).
Common to virtually all the accounts examined so far is the recognition thatleaders of governments and corporations in a small handful of major states and regions

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play an outsize roles in determining the possibilities open to actors in the rest of the
globe. Indeed, that power and leadership are crucial elements, and often prerequisites
for regional cooperation, has become a commonplace in the literature. Krauss (2003),
for example, shows that in East Asia, the United States and Japan hold virtual vetoes onregional initiatives; unless both agree, little can succeed. Ravenhill (2001) andWebber (2001) both cast doubt on the willingness and capability of major states in theregion to provide more formal leadership to the APEC and other floundering regionalorganizations. Rhee (2004) concludes that the economic preconditions for greater
monetary cooperation in East Asia are already firmly in place, but wonders whether
China and Japan will be able to cooperate even on regional initiatives that are clearly intheir mutual interest.
Neo-Realism: The influence of national power in stimulating regionalism
More controversial is the proposition that the shifting distribution of national
military capabilities in an anarchic international system stressed by “neo-realist”
scholars can explain patterns of regional cooperation. One well-known and inherently
plausible hypothesis suggests that countries will be considerably more likely to tradewith allies than with potential enemies (particularly when the distribution of power in
the international system is bipolar rather than multipolar). Thus, regional commercial
cooperation will falter, or it will largely be limited to security allies (Gowa 1994). In
other studies, however, the effects of alliances are limited compared to other factors,
such as the existence of free trade agreements (Duffield 2002).
Morrow (1997) casts strong doubt on the basic logic of the proposition: sincetrade normally provides gains to both participants, and since trade with any one country
is a relatively small share of national output of most major states, particularly outside
Europe (total trade is less than one-quarter of GDP in Japan, for example), and finallysince even adversaries rarely spend more than a small fraction of their national income
on defense, it follows that any states concerned about the possible gains from tradeaccruing to adversaries can simply devote a modest part of their own gains from trade to
defense expenditures to offset any possible disadvantage. Barring certain eventualities
that are extraordinarily unlikely under conditions of modern warfare, such as suffering asneak attack before having time to devote one’s gains from trade to defense, even when
the gains from trade heavily favor one participant, the other will still have an incentive
to engage in trade. Gowa’s observation that the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries
conducted little trade downplays alternative explanations, such as the subordination ofEastern European economies to Russian interests, conceptions, and commercially9

unviable forms of economic organization. And if trade with North Korea remains
limited, it is more because North Korea’s economy is in no shape to interact with(especially, export to) the rest of the world than because of fears that trade will
strengthen North Korea more than South Korea or other trade partners. More plausible
are fears that trade might perpetuate the life of a regime that is constantly falling behind
economically, yet dangerous nonetheless, though the counterargument that trade tends
to undermine totalitarian regimes is probably more powerful (New York Times, March
16, 28, 2005). Certainly, despite the tension between Taiwan and mainland China, or
between China and the US-Japan partnership, China’s trade with Taiwan, Japan and theUnited States has skyrocketed in recent years.
The one area where alliance relations really do seem to make a majordifference is in export controls over sensitive pieces of military or dual-use technology.
The United States and Taiwan, for example, have become reluctant to allow their firms
to export semiconductor production equipment to China, even though the large majorityof applications are civilian in nature (Cheng 2005). The concern for restricting
militarily significant technology is consistent with Morrow’s logic, since the gains fromtrade are far more limited while the potential risk is concentrated in a limited number ofgoods.
A related proposition is that regional organizations will tend to include security
allies and exclude security threats. Once again, there is some support for this idea,
such as the initial creation of ASEAN as an organization to counter the threats from
Vietnam and other communist neighbors; once Vietnam moderated its policies andChina and Russia stopped supporting Vietnam and regional insurgencies, it became
possible to incorporate Vietnam and its Indochinese neighbors Cambodia and Laos in
ASEAN. Here again, though, generalizations are tricky. For example, now that
China has become one of the world’s largest traders, a member of the WTO, and theheart of most production networks in East Asia, it has become infeasible to exclude
China from regional trading arrangements, even if security tensions become even more
severe. Southeast Asian countries that once felt both a security and an economic threat
from China have essentially concluded that they have no choice but to trade actively
with China, not least because other valued trade partners and security supports, such as
the United States and even Japan, conduct immense volumes of trade with China.
Given the dispersion of today’s regional production networks, any country that tried to
exclude China would first be excluded by its own trade partners. And while the security
concerns that the Southeast Asian countries hold about China have not entirely
disappeared, they have found China an increasingly important, even crucial, export

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market. This is, of course, consistent with Morrow’s logic. On balance, then, we
have reason to be skeptical about the argument that security dilemmas will powerfully
constrain the makeup of regional organizations.
Another cloudy issue involves the effects of country size on the propensity ofcountries to engage in regional cooperation. Take small countries. One line ofargument suggests that small states would be motivated to use regional organizations toimprove their bargaining power against powerful countries. The United States, Japan,
and China would thoroughly overpower Malaysia, say, or the Philippines, in bilateralnegotiations. Smaller states might even seek to exclude larger countries so as tomaintain the initiative; thus, Southeast Asian countries have been reluctant to see newer,
broader regional bodies supplant or replace their home base of ASEAN. Or, according
to neo-realist logic, they might be tempted to exclude rapidly rising powers (such as
China) from regional organizations. Unfortunately, precisely the opposite hypothesis isalso plausible: since China will rise no matter what ASEAN does, and since the UnitedStates and Japan will always be tempted to resort to bilateral bargaining that favors theirsuperior resources, it may make more sense for smaller countries to try to use regionalorganizations to bind and strategically constrain large or rapidly growing states.
Similarly, it makes sense that large countries might bypass regionalorganizations in favor of bilateral negotiations that maximize the exercise of relative
power. But equally plausibly, they might seek to use regional organizations toinstitutionalize their domination and reduce the transaction and monitoring costs
involved in a huge number of bilateral relations. In the immediate postwar period,
American foreign policy tended toward the latter course, seeking to create and shape
global and regional institutions that would provide permanence to American goals andreflect American interests. In recent years, as the ability of the United States todominate international organizations has declined somewhat while as its power(especially military capabilities) relative to individual leading nations such as Russia,
Germany and Japan has increased, it has tended to prefer to set policy unilaterally, or tocraft ad hoc “coalitions of the willing.” That the United States has increasingly
engaged in a kind of opportunistic international forum shopping, the determinants ofwhich no doubt vary across issue areas, geographic areas, and administrations, isunderstandable, but that flexibility makes it difficult for social scientists to devise andtest parsimonious hypotheses about the circumstances under which the U.S. will choose
regional arrangements over global, ad hoc or other alternatives.
The question can also be reversed: is hegemony, or at least strong leadership bya leading state (or two or a handful), a precondition for successful cooperation in11

regional (and other international) organizations, as Kindelberger (1986 [originallypublished 1973]) famously proposed, and as Gilpin (2001: Chs. 4, 13) still maintains,
albeit in more cautious form? Or is maintenance of cooperation by countries roughlybalanced in power possible even “after hegemony” (Keohane 1984)? The leading
theoretical study of regional integration concludes that while “demand” factors
stemming from externalities and transaction costs are necessary prerequisites, so is
undisputed leadership (Mattli 1999). Webber (2001) suggests an important revision,
based not only on the Japanese-American experience in East Asia but also on are-consideration of Franco-German cooperation in Europe: leadership can come not
only from a hegemon, but also from a hegemonic coalition. Though this argument
seems empirically sound, it also answers a question with another question: “what are theconditions for regional cooperation” becomes “what are the conditions for hegemonic
cooperation to advance regional cooperation.” In practice, as Krauss (2003) suggests,
it may be that while agreement does not guarantee success, disagreement, such as the
dispute in the late 1990s between the United States and Japan over early voluntary
liberalization in specific sectors, virtually guarantees an effective veto on cooperation.
Even in the creation of the Europe Community and later the European Union,
the influence of major powers included not only the insiders, Germany and France, butalso two crucial outsiders, the United States and the Soviet Union, whose presence andpolicies powerfully shaped the context of integration, most crucially by removing thepossibility of a renewal of Franco-German military competition. Incorporated into
NATO, forced to apologize repeatedly for its past sins, and occupied by 300,000
American troops, Germany could not possibly pose a threat to France. On the outside,
the threat from the Soviet bloc sharply increased the incentives for cooperation among
the capitalist democracies of Western Europe. This Cold War standoff continued formore than 40 years, giving France and Germany sufficient time not only to lead
cooperation but to convince the continent that a renewal of old military conflicts wasinconceivable. Thus, while security concerns and power balances are crucial and exert
important externalities, they are also hard to generalize. Conflict among leading
powers normally will doom cooperation, but agreement will not necessarily guarantee
success at the regional level.
The Role of Norms and Identity
An alternative approach looks not at power but norms and identity: countries
and peoples may cooperate not only when they are coerced or led by powerful states,
but when they identify with a particular region and agree on a set of norms governing

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relations in that region. At least, normative and identity concerns will facilitate
cooperation in some cases, and greatly impede it in others. A central contention of
constructivism is that identity, including regional identity, is not simply determined bygeography or passed on via ethnicity, language or religion, but is constantly (or at least
recurrently) formed and reshaped by the process of political interaction and contestation.
The commonly used phrase “the West,” for example, turns out to be ambiguous,contested, and malleable (O’Hagan 2002). Similarly, the question of whether Japan
should lead the rest of Asia, should “remove itself from Asia,” or never has belonged to“Asia” has roiled the politics of Japan—and the region—for well over a century, withno clear end in sight. More broadly, a veritable cottage industry has arisen comparing
and contrasting the various terms used to describe and delimit Asia—or is it the
Asia-Pacific? (Kim 2004: 44-47). Does East Asia neatly break down into northeast
Asia and Southeast Asia? What about India? Each of these conceptions and terms
carries important implications for who is in and who is out as well as whose interests,
values and norms are more likely to predominate (do Australia and New Zealand, or forthat matter the United States and Canada, belong to “the Asia-Pacific region” or are
they external to “East Asia”—and what about Papua New Guinea or the Solomon
Islands?). Rather like old conceptions of social class, then, regional identity is not
given but formed and reformed in the process of interaction and conflict (Terada 2003).
The Asian financial crisis, for example, not only revealed the high degree ofcommercial and financial interdependence and mutual vulnerability in the region, butalso exposed a major gap in perceptions and ideologies between the United States,
which blamed crony capitalism, insisted on rigorous belt-tightening, and provided
almost no aid lest it contribute to moral hazard, and Japan, which immediately put
together a huge support package (the New Miyazawa Plan) to help afflicted countries(as well as the subsidiaries of Japanese companies working there).
Two examples may help highlight the potential contribution of theconstructivist approach to our understanding of East Asian regionalism. Kim Bongjin(2002) rebuts the common Western contention that the pre-modern East Asia “tributarysystem” lacked the concepts of sovereignty and equality. In fact, Kim claims, Chinese
foreign policy derived from a Confucian moral ordering that emphasized benevolence:in principle and fact, after the tenth century the Chinese empire avoided interfering in
the internal affairs and mutual interchange of its tributaries and, depending upon therelative power balance, periodically entered into equal diplomatic relations with themand with neighboring “barbarian” states (see also Rossabi ed. 1983 on China’s equal
relations with its neighbors under the Song dynasty). Korea, the most important13

tributary state, was quite willing to accept the religio-cultural centrality of China inreturn for support and protection, especially against Japan (though based in a Japanese
university, Kim is less revealing about Japanese attitudes toward the Sinic order).
Thus, the degree to which Confucian norms and practical sovereignty achieved wide
acceptance in East Asia probably varied considerably according to practicalcircumstances (particularly the degree of Chinese strength) and the distance from China(Japan being notably more distanced politically even as it continued to uphold Chinese
cultural patterns, not least the use of the Chinese language and concepts in its
diplomatic discourse). But it is beyond doubt that common norms were widely heldand even more widely understood in the region, and that they were not completely
incompatible with Western ideals of the sovereign equality of states, one of the starting
points for the contemporary understanding of regionalism (indeed, Kim castigates theWestern countries, not China, for introducing formal inequality into the foreign
relations of East Asia in the guise of the unequal treaties). Those norms exerted a deep
influence on the sense of identities of the peoples of northeast Asia.
According to constuctivists, conceptions of identity also directed diplomaticarrangements in the post-war period. Hemmer and Katzenstein (2002) argue that theUnited States chose to embed its relations with Western Europe in a multilateralframework, but to approach East Asia with a bilateral “hub-and-spokes” approach, ingood measure because American policymakers identified Europe and America as part ofcommon Western heritage but perceived East Asians as belonging to an alien culturaland normative universe. Particularly interesting is the effort American policymakers
put into convincing a traditionally isolationist public skeptical of European
entanglements that North America and Europe shared a common fate. This cultural
effort and the geographic realities of defense against the Soviet Union stimulated theelaboration of the conception of a “North Atlantic community” encompassing theWestern European countries (including Italy, which heretofore had not been known as aNorth Atlantic country), Canada, the United States and, last but not least, Greenland.
For Canada, the “North Atlantic” conception provided a buffer against public
perceptions that Canada might be manipulated by the United States. Security threats,
geographic realities and the distribution of military capabilities all played a role, ofcourse, but, Hemmer and Katzenstein contend, membership and identity were necessary
elements, and they were contingent and malleable: the North Atlantic security
community was the product of active creation, not simply the reflection of geographic
boundaries.
While nearly unimpeachable on its own terms, it is not clear just how far this14

approach can be taken. Pempel (2005) for example, while embracing the notion of
construction/deconstruction, and “remapping,” also suggests that if the outer boundaries
of East Asia are ambiguous and contestable, an inner core is nonetheless identifiable:
the current “ASEAN plus three” formulation. Even APT, though, risks putting cart
before horse, since the “three” contain roughly 90% of the region’s people, bombs, andfactories, and China and Japan historically played a far more important role in shaping
Southeast Asia (Chinese empire and emigration; Japanese colonialism and commercial
expansion) than the other way around. And as Kim (2004: 47, 52) emphasizes, China
is clearly the geographic center of any possible conception of East Asia, the only
country that comes close to bordering all of the others. The functionalist arguments
reviewed above also suggest that spillovers of people, pollution, economic activity andthe like can be significant in creating regional interests and identities. Geography may
not be determinative, in other words, but it should not be ignored, either, particularly in
densely populated regions such as East Asia (or Europe).
If the constructivists concentrate on changing conceptions of identity andmembership, a closely related approach emphasizes the impact of ideas, learning andfads. Parsons (2002) claims that while increasing cross-border interactions help
explain the “demand” for some form of regional order in Western Europe, the specificorganizational contours the European Community assumed were given shape bydominant ideas in the leading country (France in the 1950s). Within regions, countries
can more easily learn from the experience of neighbors with which they are intimately
linked than from experiences in other parts of the globe (see e.g. Eising 2002 on reforms
to the electricity sector in leading EU countries). Whole regions can also learn fromeach other. Regionalism in East Asia, for example, is stimulated by fears of exclusion
from, or loss of bargaining leverage to, the European Union and NAFTA, but it is also
shaped by learning from their example. The leading regional organizations,particularly the EU and NAFTA, not only serve as a stimulus for regional cooperationelsewhere, they also provide a template for possible forms of cooperation elsewhere (cf.
Powell and DiMaggio eds.1991 on institutional isomorphism). Other regions not only
look to Europe for inspiration, they also have to react to the specific approaches
developed in Europe. Standards for the safety, emissions and recycling of automobiles,
for example, are now largely set in Europe; other countries and regions find it easieradopt or slightly modify European approaches than to develop wholly new standards.

15

Conclusion
Regionalism, like political science and international relations more generally, isa contested and messy field. The study of regional organization is flush withhypotheses, but many are hard to test and to reconcile with one another. More
important is the lack of a strong unifying theory of regional integration. While there isconsiderable agreement that rising regional interactions create a demand for some sortof regional order, and that the preferences and strategies of leading states are importantconsiderations, the precise logic remains deeply contested by the leading schools ofthought in international relations: neo-liberals, neo-realists, and constructivists (the lastof which are, ironically, in some ways the most “neo” of the bunch). Functional
spillovers are clearly important, but they do not automatically determine membership ororganizational form, and the relevant spillovers (trade, finance, pollution, water,
immigration, crime, culture) are extremely diverse.
Another obstacle to the comparative study of regionalism is that the cases are
not independent. The European Union, and to a much lesser degree NAFTA, exert
immense influence on attitudes toward regionalism in other parts of the world. And
yet in many respects—geography, history, political systems, the distribution of power,
surrounding power dynamics (particularly the crucible-like effects of theSoviet-American military standoff in Europe during the long formative years)—Europe
is sui generis. Similarly, the United States is unique in being a genuinely global power,with capabilities and interests that transcend the Americas and extend to every corner ofthe globe. And if leading countries more generally are crucial actors in the process ofregion building, they are subject to diverse influences, not least varying domestic
political balances (Milner 1997), that make generalization difficult. The influx ofMuslim immigrants into Europe, for example, is clearly exerting pressure on norms ofidentity, but the implications are exceedingly hard to predict, and depend partly on the
success of conscious efforts to build and rebuild the European community itself: should
Europe embrace multiculturalism or reinvigorate the process of absorbing new
immigrants into contemporary (mostly secular, rationalist) European values? Should
Europe embrace Turkey or exclude it? How should Europe coordinate policies toward
the Middle East with the United States, where immigration from Muslim countries
remains far more limited? The degree of path dependence is also difficult to measure.
Certain forms of regional organization may be chosen for quite opportunistic reasons at
one point in time, then develop in a path-dependent way, but crises may suddenly arise
and force or allow a sudden change in direction.
All of these considerations suggest that while comparative and especially16

statistically based studies of trade and the other specific forms of regional interaction
are valuable, we must always keep in mind the larger global and historical context ofregionalism. Regions are not alternatives to globalization, they are one part of it, andno region is an island.

17

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21

討論・ Nesting という用語は、相互に連関すると言う意味で使われているのか？
Ｎ

２つの可能性がある。１つはその通りで、相互関係である。もう１つは、例えば経済・取引が安全保障の上に立つように、hierarchy が存在することである。両方の使い方をするが、どちらかと言うと後者に重点を置きたい。
・

Looking at regionalization (the term globalization was never used in the talk, but a lot of it

was about globalization as a flipside of the coin), when it is not possible to decide what theory
to use, you seem to be more on the neo-functional side.

But there are other possible fields withdifferent viewpoints, such as history or law for example.

So, the identification of fields tofocus on is necessary; we need some focus to identify the fields which are topics for current
cooperation and future cooperation in regions.

It might be possible to decide “what is aregion—between which players cooperation is possible.”
important fields of cooperation to consider.
important is finance.

Trade and energy are among others

Another field that may be strange but is still

You mentioned currency, but I do not think that it’s really currency; it ismore about finance, especially in Asia.

Finance is probably the most globalized one, but

actually it does not really develop in terms of market development as a global approach, as
there are first centers growing then rather small markets develop possible technologies and soon; this is what you are seeing in the US and Europe, as well.

And finance might be an

extremely important field in Asia for cooperation.
Sometimes it’s not what is the most promising in terms of easy to solve; sometimes it might begood to look in the other direction, which is the most nasty, most violent, most problematic
point, and thinking about this problem might be helpful for this region as well.

So if we do nothave a common theory, it might be helpful to structure it along topics, and then to focus on these
topics, and use the theory if then.
Ｎ

One thing I have not mentioned yet is an ideal typical distinction between public goods andprivate goods.

In theory, there is something in the middle called Club goods.

tricky about finance, R&D, energy is: are these global or regional?
And exactly figuring out the limits is really hard.

What is really

The reality is, they are both.

If you look at R&D, for example, everybody

says, R&D is available anywhere in the world now, subscribe to a few journals and go to someconferences and you can learn what everyone else is doing.

But the empirical research issurprisingly strong that there is a strong degree of regionalization; nationalization andregionalization in science.

So it is neither completely limited to one country nor completely

22

global:it is an uneasy mix and hard to grasp.

For example, there is energy.

In principle, a barrel of oil is a barrel of oil.

amount, a global price, it can be shipped anywhere.

But it also has a regional side.

course, people can change policies, complicating the matter further.
regional, global side, all at the same time.

It costs a certain
And, ofSo there is a national,

One of the questions is, as you mentioned forexample, that finance is more global but not entirely global, which I completely agree with.

I

think one of the things that might be useful is to get a kind of a very general map, to what extent
are some of these important issues global or not so completely global.

What is the distributionof these things, how great is the degree of publicness or clubness of these things?

And map

many of them, particularly within Asia or within a region, and see to what extent is there acertain coherent region.

Finding a place where there is a high degree of localness to several

different elements is a start.

But I think there is a room for some empirical work.

As I said, I

hardly come up with grand theories, but just getting a basic fact out there is important.

Someof these, perhaps we can ask our economic specialists how we can re-conceptualize what is aclub good, what is a public good, under what circumstances, to what extent, how does it change,etc.

I think it’s a good point, but it’s still difficult to do.

・ A statistical approach can easily become messy and time consuming, without much of amessage at the end, especially when there are many facets between global or regional, orcompletely local goods in between.

Using theories and available options on different fields

and trying to identify the players is better.

This is not really statistical, but more in the middle

between using available theories on self-identify resource strategies or main points we have, andjust cutting through the different levels, for different fields, different players.

So grouping

more by fields could be an approach.
Ｎ

I don’t disagree.

I definitely do not think that the focus of the answer to this project

should be statistic, but as a background it would be nice if we could get some database and see
what is going on.

One thing that I might emphasize more is that the preferences of the major

players are crucial.

But, considering what is pushing, for example, the American politics suchas right-wing Christian fanatics and all sorts of other things, it is very complicated to explain thedomestic politics.

And to some extent, you are going to have to say “So for whatever thereason this is what Germany is about, France is about, what Japan wants, China wants, the US
wants...”

But I do think that those half a dozen countries or so are far more important thaneveryone else, so it is important to get the sense of what their reasons toward regionalism is.
・ Some basis needs to be established.

Because, for example, three months ago everybody

23was talking about FTAs in Asia, and now nobody is talking about it anymore. Talks are going on,
but now people are talking about how Korea is blocking Japan’s getting into the Security
Council and how China is fighting over some energy below an island.

If you don’t establish

the basis on, for example, what remains interesting after six months of talks on the Security
Council, it becomes very hard to just keep interests on the topics around.

(No reply)

・ ３つの質問と、最後にコメント。
１．本論文で引用されているものの８割から９割がヨーロッパの研究であり、アジア独自の regionalism についての研究への言及、もしくはそれとの関連を説明してほしい。
２．Global の中で Region に含まれない players （rest of the world）についてはどう考えるべきか。また Region の規定をどのようにするか。（「ヨーロッパ」の規定が、「イスラム以外の世界」という中世からの発想から、現在ＥＵへのトルコの加盟により脱却
しなければならないように。）
３．過去１０−１５年に regional integration が進んでいる傾向は共通認識になっているが、同じように regional や national disintegration が進んでいる（例：ユーゴスラビア・
ソビエト連邦・中国＝台湾）傾向も見られるので、regionalism を考えるときにはこれも考慮する必要があると思うがどうか。
４．Identity について。米国は民主主義を武力で広め、ヨーロッパは民主主義をＥＵ加盟の条件として広めるように、主体によって方法が違う。また、経済学的に言うと、ヨーロッパは経済ギャップをなるべく縮めるようにする social model であるが、米国では経済ギャップは逆に positive に評価される。このヨーロッパの social norm は昔からあったわけではなく、むしろ第二次世界大戦後に出てきた側面が大きい。このように、normを再構築していく過程は面白いのではないか？
Ｎ
１．２つの問題点。どうしても英文を読みがちになり、そしてそもそも日本人の学者も英文で書きがちである。また欧米（とくに米国）の影響が政治学、国際論では大きく、理論はほとんど欧米のものであることも一因である。
２．全員がメンバーであることは誰もメンバーでないことと同じである。ＥＵが東や南に拡大する過程において、そのトルコの事例は非常に重要。どのように解釈するかはまだ良く分からない。ヨーロッパの心としてはトルコを排他したいが、頭としては各国に
イスラム教徒が存在する現在、イスラム諸国との関係を考えると、ＥＵに一番ふさわし
いトルコの加入を阻止することは非常に難しいと思われる。よって、これはまだ大きな問題になっていない。これからも注意深く見守る必要がある。
アジアにおいては、台湾は非常に大きな問題である。中国は、台湾の国際的な地位を否定して、ＡＰＥＣ加入以外は全て排除している。ＡＳＥＡＮ＋３の定義がアジアマイ24

ナス台湾（と北朝鮮）になっている。また、オーストラリアとニュージーランド、そして米国の参加も考慮しなければならない。
これらを一つの理論で説明できるかと言うと難しいと思う。
３．Disintegration には２つの視点があると思われる。一つは failed states、国家が成立しなくなる場合であり、その場合には、積極的な地域間の協力は成り立たない。もう一つは、例えば United Kingdom で Scotland や Wales が独立しようと思うのは、それよ
り大きな主体（EU）に含まれる可能性があり、それによって損をしないから。ただ、実際問題、successful states から独立する可能性はないと思うし、問題になる可能性はもっと低いと思う。
４．Norm (規範) は、詳細まで見ると地域によって結構違うと思う。また英国を宗主国とした国々は、地域によらず密接な関係があると思う。そして、日本と米国とは密接な関係が近年ある。ただ、国連の投票を見てみると、これもまた変わっていて、日本はカナダとヨーロッパと投票傾向がほぼ一致しているが、米国とは違っている。米国が独特なのであろう。
長期的な米国と欧州の関係が、共通の敵を失ったことにより阻害されることにはなるだ
ろう。例えば死刑制度を見ると日本と米国では普通に行われるが欧州においては非人間的と考えられている。どこまで米国と欧州が連携できるかは微妙になると思う。また、フランスやドイツのＭＮＣは域内での経済活動の割合が大きく、米国のそれらとは違う。
このことにより、政策等を通じて問題が起こる可能性は十分ある。
・ 東アジアはなぜ東アジアなのか。また、どのレベルで閉じられているのか？例えば、ＡＳＥＡＮ諸国は貿易や投資の面では閉じられていない。ＡＰＥＣやＡＳＥＡＮ＋３などを見ると、アジアは特殊ではないだろうか？また、そもそも東アジア領域で考える必要があるのか、と言う疑問がある。
Ｎ 東アジアの統合が望ましいかというようなことを分析するよりも、最近の発展の理由などを調べることが主眼となる。閉じられているかは分からないし、やはり同時に重層的でもあり、地域間の協力もあると思われる。Domino 効果があり、東南アジアだけでは分析が出来ないと思う。なぜ東アジアかというと、色々な定義があるが、中国とその周りというものがその一つである。汚染問題や資源問題は中国の発展に影響されている。一つの国で対応するか、地域で対応するか、全世界で対応するか、色々な考え方があり全て同時に進行すると思うが、地域で考えることも自然であり重要であると考える。
・ 直近の FTA 政策について、region が東アジア共同体であると考えるか、bilateral (huband spokes) な交渉を行っていると考えるか？ bilateral な交渉でさえ、大変（農作物の自由化など）なのに、小さいとはいえ複数の region の交渉はより大変になる。どれだ25

け日本がそのような交渉に commit する理由があるかわからないし、おそらく合理的な
結論は、bilateral でやれるところからやっていけばよいということになるだろう。
Ｎ まだきれいな結論は出ていない。ただ言えることは、bilateral においては大きな国の国内政治が大事な役割を果たしている。同じように日本では農作物市場の開放は困難
で自民党は地域基盤を重要視しているためあまり進展がないが、長期的には政府と自民党も日本の農業について変えなければならないことは認識していると思う。何も譲歩をしないと日本にとっても自民党にとっても長期的には良くないことは分かるので、ペースをどのようにコントロールするかが forum shopping のスピードを規定することになるだろう。国が大きければ大きいほど選択肢が広がり、forum shopping が出来やすくなると思う。国と政党の利益を目的として、どのくらいが一番ふさわしいスピードである
かを政党が考えて選択していると思う。日本では bilateral と 地域の間ぐらいだと思う。
全世界的に交渉を行うことは危険だが、その二つのレベルならどちらも問題ないだろう。
この動きは、自民党の地域的基盤重視から全国的に基盤を広げる過程の一部分と捉えることができるのではないか？
（討論記録 清水大昌）

26