This book examines the evolving multilateral security arrangements in East Asia, with a focus on the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It explores the function and relevance of ASEAN in East Asia's emerging institutional security landscape. These issues have direct implications for the future of the ASEAN Security Community, the relevance of the ASEAN cooperative model to wider regional arrangements, and finally, for the further institutionalization of great power relations within these multilateral structures. The book highlights ASEAN's successes and shortcomings. It also considers ASEAN-led institutions in the wider region and goes on to analyse alternative approaches to regionalism, including the China-Japan-South Korea Trilateral Summit. Overall, it assesses how the various initiatives are likely to develop, concluding that ASEAN, despite its shortcomings, is likely to continue to play a key role.

Institutional activities have remarkably transformed East Asia, a region once known for the absence of regionalism and regime-building efforts. Yet the dynamics of this Asian institutionalization have remained an understudied area of research. This book offers one of the first scholarly attempts to clarify what constitutes institutionalization in East Asia and to systematically trace the origins, discern the features, and analyze the prospects of ongoing institutionalization processes in the world’s most dynamic region. Institutionalizing East Asia comprises eight essays, grouped thematically into three sections. Part I considers East and Southeast Asia as focal points of inter-state exchanges and traces the institutionalization of inter-state cooperation first among the Southeast Asian states and then among those of the wider East Asia. Part II examines the institutionalization of regional collaboration in four domains: economy, security, natural disaster relief, and ethnic conflict management. Part III discusses the institutionalization dynamics at the sub-regional and inter-regional levels. The essays in this book offer a useful source of reference for scholars and researchers specializing in East Asia, regional architecture, and institution-building in international relations. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students interested in ASEAN, the drivers and limits of international cooperation, as well as the role of regional multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region.

This edited volume proposes that an understanding of ASEAN – its development and institutionalization – is invaluable to our conception of international relations theory in the Asian context. Southeast Asia and ASEAN host peoples, ideas, institutions, and relations that contribute to a critical reassessment of theories in social sciences. In the field of IR, studies on transnational networks, diasporas, small states, middle powers, the role of history, and identity learn from Southeast Asian practices. ASEAN has long been established as an authoritative example of alternative ways of regional institutionalization. Besides empirical analysis, these fields can also benefit from their interactions with regional scholarly communities. This edited book offers an opportunity for a dialogue among scholarly communities on a variety of issues of which Southeast Asia and ASEAN provide ample opportunities for a critical analysis. This book will be of great interest to scholars of ASEAN, the broader Asian region, and for scholars of regionalism in general.

Institutional activities have remarkably transformed East Asia, a region once known for the absence of regionalism and regime-building efforts. Yet the dynamics of this Asian institutionalization have remained an understudied area of research. This book offers one of the first scholarly attempts to clarify what constitutes institutionalization in East Asia and to systematically trace the origins, discern the features, and analyze the prospects of ongoing institutionalization processes in the world's most dynamic region. Institutionalizing East Asia comprises eight essays, grouped thematically into three sections. Part I considers East and Southeast Asia as focal points of inter-state exchanges and traces the institutionalization of inter-state cooperation first among the Southeast Asian states and then among those of the wider East Asia. Part II examines the institutionalization of regional collaboration in four domains: economy, security, natural disaster relief, and ethnic conflict management. Part III discusses the institutionalization dynamics at the sub-regional and inter-regional levels.0The essays in this book offer a useful source of reference for scholars and researchers specializing in East Asia, regional architecture, and institution-building in international relations. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students interested in ASEAN, the drivers and limits of international cooperation, as well as the role of regional multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Asia-Pacific region is home to the world's largest economies and some of its most volatile strategic relationships. But for all its geopolitical importance, it has generally failed to develop the sorts of powerful and effective institutions that are found in Western Europe. This book explains why and considers the prospects for future institutional development in this pivotal region

Focuses both on specific regional organizations like ASEAN, The Asian Development Bank and APEC, as well as on key institutions such as East Asian legal systems, the media, organized labour, Asian business systems, and the developmental state.

In the decade since the Asian financial crisis the ten states of Southeast Asia that form ASEAN, together with China, Japan and South Korea have formed the basis of a community intended to support the well-being of its member states, markets and peoples. This highly successful regionalisation was not anticipated by the region’s leaders, however, and as a result, policy makers are increasingly talking about ‘meeting fatigue’ and the need to find a better way to govern regional affairs. Among the reforms being considered is a shift towards a more rules-based culture as well as the more explicit incorporation of both private sector and civil society organisations into the policy processes. In short, ASEAN+3 is seeking to develop new norms and processes for its networks and institutions. This book explores the pressures currently influencing East Asian regionalist policy debates, analysing the trend towards deeper integration and the emergence of a governance model for managing regional processes. Combining state and subnational perspectives in conjunction with an examination of the role of the business community and civil society organisations, this book highlights the policy challenges confronting regionalism and governance in East Asia, including key issues such as the rule of law, financial cooperation and a case study on disaster management.