Between Regionalism and Regionalization: Policy Networks and the Nascent East Asian Institutional Identity
Paul Evans, Liu Faculty, UBC
January 1, 2005
The chapters in this volume share a common interest in the material forces of firm-driven trade, investment, and production that are deepening economic integration in proximate parts of continental and maritime Asia.
The less-developed twin of this integration from the bottom up is the process of state-led institution building from the top down. Over the past decade, the institutional fabric of East Asia has become richer and more densely textured. On a bilateral basis, the number of summits and exchanges has increased substantially. And on a multilateral basis, an incipient regionalism has developed in three layers: formal governmental organizations including ASEAN, APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and, more recently, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; various track II channels for dialogue on economic, political, security, environmental, and toher transnational issue; and civil society-based activity involving actors such as NGOs, regional advocacy groups, and professional and business associations. “Although it is underdeveloped,” observed a Korean academic, “regionalism in Asia is complicated enough” (Han 2002,1).
In T.J. Pempel, ed., Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region (Cornell University Press 2005).
