Provides the first systematic analysis of new Asian regionalism as a paradigm shift in international economic law.

With the disappearance of the imperial structures that had dominated Southeast Asia, newly independent states had to develop foreign policies of their own. But so far few if any of these states have been willing to allow the public to explore any documentation of their activities. Building on his earlier work that drew on U.K. records, the author incorporates material from New Zealand archives -- which also contain reports from Australian and Canadian diplomats -- to provide a historical analysis of the foreign policies of Southeast Asian nations from a New Zealand perspective.

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.

Developments in East Asia have progressed rapidly in terms of regionalism since the 1997 crisis. The end of the Asian miracle called into question not only the capacity of regional states to meet the needs of their attendant peoples, but also challenged the viability of regional organizations, such as ASEAN, to adapt and respond to the changing circumstances. Advancing East Asian Regionalism looks at the ways in which ASEAN has expanded since the crisis, and evaluates the potential of East Asia to come together in a regional formation - one capable of representing the region as a whole - akin to the European Community. It draws upon the knowledge and perspectives of academics and policy makers actively engaged in the contradictory issues of regionalism. Coupling case study material on regionalism, institutions, and sectoral cooperation, with theoretical debates on regionalization, this book is an invaluable resource that pushes our understanding of East Asian regionalism forward.

This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms.

The Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism is a definitive introduction to, and analysis of, the development of regionalism in Asia, including coverage of East Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The contributors engage in a comprehensive exploration of what is arguably the most dynamic and important region in the world. Significantly, this volume addresses the multiple manifestations of regionalism in Asia and is consequently organised thematically under the headings of: conceptualizing the region economic issues political issues strategic issues regional organizations As such, the Handbook presents some of the key elements of the competing interpretations of this important and highly contested topic, giving the reader a chance to evaluate not just where Asian regionalism is going but also how the scholarship on Asian regionalism is analysing these trends and events. This book will be an indispensable resource for students and scholars of Asian politics, international relations and regionalism.

This book explores the essential nature of regionalism by conducting a comprehensive analysis of more than 30 regionalist proposals made by Japan and other Asian countries throughout the post-war period. Shintaro Hamanaka examines the whole post war period and covers all regionalist proposals since then, while most existing studies cover only the development of Asian regionalism in the recent decade. A significant number of cases in the proposed book enable the readers to go beyond an understanding of each regionalist project, to a deeper understanding of theoretically generalizeable behavior pattern of Japan and other countries. The book also comparatively analyzes political, financial and trade regionalisms. The central aim of the book is to reveal the fact that policies with regard to regionalism have a pattern, in this case with a principal, though not an exclusive focus, on Japan. The author demonstrates that the behavior pattern of external policy is extremely consistent in terms of the membership of regionalist organizations and discusses whether this new approach to regionalism holds explanatory power vis-à-vis regionalism outside Asia. This book will be of interest to scholars, postgraduate students and policy makers in the fields of international relations, Asian studies, international trade and regionalism.