Routledge Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (Politics in Asia)

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.   Review Empirically rich, conceptually sophisticated though not theoretically obsessed, an impressive and well-integrated collection of essays on the dynamics of multilateral institutions in Eastern Asia. The authors are all of the region and present a distinctive account of institutionalization as an evolving social structure that produces rules and influences state behaviour but that does not depend upon legalistic or contractual arrangements. Positive about the accomplishments, realistic about the limitations, guardedly optimistic about the prospects, the volume may not silence the naysayers who dismiss ASEAN-inflected multilateralism. But it will substantially boost the quality of a debate that is of academic importance and more. Paul Evans, Institute of Asian Research, University of British Columbia About the Author Alice D. Ba is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, University of Delaware. Cheng-Chwee Kuik is Associate Professor in the Strategic Studies and International Relations Program at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). Sueo Sudo is Professor at the Department of Policy Studies, Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan.