One of the apparent contradictions which has puzzled observers of East Asian politics is why, despite the region's considerable economic integration, economic governance institutions remain largely underdeveloped. This book stems from the observation that the study of actual forms of economic governance in Asia has been impeded by the dominance of a ‘regionalism’ problematique. Scholars have focused on the emergence – or not – of regional multilateral institutions, seeking to evaluate these institutions’ capacities to enforce disciplines on Asian states. However, they have also neglected prior, and more pertinent, questions regarding the causal determinants of regional economic governance, which animate the contributions to this collection: What factors shape the scale and instruments of economic governance in Asia; and how and why is economic governance being rescaled between the sub-national, national and regional levels? In the chapters of this book, the contributors explore the social and political struggles over the scale and instruments of economic governance. They identify and explain the emergence of a wide variety of regional modes of economic governance, explain the factors shaping the spatial scale of economic governance in Asia, and discern the patterns of regional integration to which they give rise. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Australian Journal of International Affairs.

While the focus on national governments as the main providers of different forms of transnational governance in Southeast Asia is entirely understandable, such a focus can significantly underestimate the roles played by non-state actors. This comprehensive collection provides five different case studies that explore in detail how these governance forms work in different policy arenas. While previous studies have noted the way that non-state actors act as pressure or advisory groups, lobbying or advising states and regional organisations, this book explores how they are now more actively involved in a variety of cross-border networked forms of coordination, providing standards, rules and practices that other actors voluntarily abide by. The chapters in this volume reveal variations in the architecture of transnational governance, why they emerge, the modes of social co-ordination through which they work to shape actor behaviour and achieve impact, their normative implications, and how these governance schemes intersect with state and national regulatory frameworks. The authors point to the importance of looking beyond arrangements established through intergovernmental mechanisms in order to gain a full understanding of how international interactions are organised in Southeast Asia. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Asia.

The regional trade governance architecture is in flux. The latest wave of regionalism in the form of mega-regional trade partnerships between countries with major shares of the world economy occurred in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-09. The most systematically important mega-FTAs included the Trans-Pacific Partnership led by the United States (US), the China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership between the European Union (EU) and the US. Drawing on policy diffusion and competitive regionalism literatures, Xianbai Ji develops an innovative model of competitive spill-over to uncover the historical and contemporary sources of mega-regionalism resulting from a temporal clustering of mega-FTA initiatives from great powers. In the book, mega-FTA is conceptualised as an instrument of geo-economic competition between the US, China, and the EU. Each aspired to leverage its mega-FTA to gain an edge over its rivals in economic, geopolitical, and legal terms. Through a mix-method research strategy involving computable general equilibrium modelling, game theory, desk research, and perception survey, Ji generates an impressive chorus of quantitative, qualitative, and perceptual data demonstrating that the rise of mega-regionalism was driven by the multidimensional competition between the US, China, and the EU over international economic benefits, geopolitical influence, and the authority to write rules governing emerging trade issues. This book will attract academics, think tankers, practitioners, and postgraduate students interested in regionalism, international trade, international political economy, applied trade policy analysis, great power competition, geo-economics, and international relations.

A systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalisation, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesise the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research.

It is now conventional wisdom to see the great policy challenges of the 21st century as inherently transnational. It is equally common to note the failures of the international institutions the world relies on to address such challenges. As the acclaimed 2013 book Gridlock argued, the world increasingly needs effective international cooperation, but multilateralism appears unable to deliver it in the face of deepening interdependence, rising multipolarity, and the growing complexity and fragmentation that characterise the global order. The Gridlock authors have now partnered with a group of leading experts to offer a trenchant reassessment of elements of the argument. Comparing anomalies and exceptions to multilateral dysfunction across a number of spheres of world politics, Beyond Gridlock explores seven pathways through and beyond gridlock. While multilateralism continues to fall short, Beyond Gridlock identifies systematic means to avoid or resist these forces and turn them into collective solutions. This book offers a vital new perspective on world politics as well as a practical guide for positive change in global policy.

This original book provides a unique analysis of the different regional and inter-regional projects, their processes and the politics of Europeanisation, globalisation and education. Collectively, the contirbutors engage with international relations and integrations theory to explore new ways of thinking about regionalisms and inter-regionalisms, and bring to the fore the role that higher education plays in this.

'Non-traditional', border-spanning security problems pervade the global agenda. This is the first book that systematically explains how they are managed.