Amitav Acharya

Ideas, identity, and institution‐building: From the ‘ASEAN way’ to the ‘Asia‐Pacific way'?

Abstract This article examines the extent to which the development of multilateral institutions in the Asia‐Pacific region may be viewed as an exercise in identity‐building. It argues that institution‐building in this region is more of a ‘process‐orientated’ phenomenon, rather than simply being an outcome of structural changes in the international system (such as the decline of American hegemony). The process combines universal principles of multilateralism with some of the relatively distinct modes of socialization prevailing in the region. Crucial to the process have been the adaptation of four ideas: ‘cooperative security’, ‘open regionalism’, ‘soft regionalism’, and ‘flexible consensus’. The construction of a regional identity, which may be termed the ‘Asia‐Pacific Way’ has also been facilitated by the avoidance of institutional grand designs and the adoption of a consensual and cautious approach extrapolated from the ‘ASEAN Way’. The final section of the article examines the limitations and dangers o...

Will Asia's Past Be Its Future?

Post–Cold War debates about Asian security have been dominated by Aaron Friedberg’s inouential image of a region seemingly “ripe for rivalry.”1 Friedberg stressed Asia’s lack of stability-enhancing mechanisms of the kind that sustains peace in Europe, such as its high levels of regional economic integration and regional institutions to mitigate and manage conoict. Other pessimists foresaw regional disorder stemming from Asian states’ attempts to balance a rising China. Taken together, such views have shaped a decade of thinking about Asian security in academic and policy circles. Now, in a recent article in International Security entitled “Getting Asia Wrong: The Need for New Analytical Frameworks,” David Kang offers an alternative view that is both timely and provocative. Kang ands that “Asian states do not appear to be balancing against . . . China. Rather they seem to be bandwagoning” (p. 58). He then presents an indigenous Asian tradition that could sustain regional order: the region’s historical acceptance of a “hierarchical” interstate order with China at its core. “Historically,” Kang suggests, “it has been Chinese weakness that has led to chaos in Asia. When China has been strong and stable, order has been preserved. East Asian regional relations have historically been hierarchic, more peaceful, and more stable than those in the West” (p. 66). After faulting Western scholarship for taking an essentially Eurocentric approach to Asian security, Kang calls for bringing international relations theory more in tune with Asian realities. He also asserts that scholars should strive for a better match between their theoretical tools and the evidence on the ground. Taking cognizance of Asia’s different pathway to national sovereignty and regional order, Kang argues, would open the door to new and exciting adWill Asia’s Past Be Its Future?

The Emerging Regional Architecture of World Politics

This article examines the importance of regions in shaping world order. Reviewing two recent books that claim that the contemporary world order is an increasingly regionalized one, the author argues that regions matter to the extent they can be relatively autonomous entities. While both books accept that regions are social constructs, their answer to the question of who makes regions reflects a bias in favor of powerful actors. A regional understanding of world politics should pay more attention to and demonstrate how regions resist and socialize power—at both global and regional levels—rather than simply focusing on how powers construct regions. Power matters, but local responses to power, including strategies of exclusion, resistance, socialization, and binding, matter more in understanding how regions are socially constructed. The article elaborates on various types of responses to power from both state and societal actors in order to offer an inside-out, rather than outside-in, perspective on the regional architecture of world politics.

The quest for identity : international relations of Southeast Asia

This text seeks to provide an understanding of Southest Asia as a region, the problems of statehood faced by the individual countries, and the search for regional order, peace and stability. It also explores Southeast Asias adaptation to the changing world order, and long-term changes in terms of economic, political, and security implications. The book is intended for students of Southeast Asian studies , political science and economics.

Crafting cooperation : regional international institutions in comparative perspective

1. Comparing regional institutions: an introduction Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston 2. Hanging together, institutional design and cooperation in Southeast Asia: AFTA and the ARF Yuen Foong Khong and Helen E.S. Nesadurai 3. International cooperation in Latin America: the design of regional institutions by slow accretion Jorge I. Dominguez 4. Crafting regional cooperation in Africa Jeffrey Herbst 5. Functional form, identity-driven cooperation: institutional designs and effects in post-Cold War NATO Frank Schimmelfennig 6. Designed to fail or failure of design? The origins and legacy of the Arab League Michael Barnett and Etel Solingen 7. Social mechanisms and regional cooperation: are Europe and the EU really all that different? Jeffrey T. Checkel 8. Conclusion: institutional features, cooperation effects and the agenda for further research on comparative regionalism Amitav Acharya and Alastair Iain Johnston.

Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories Beyond the West

Scholars of International Relations (IR) increasingly realise that their discipline, including its theories and methods, often neglects voices and experiences outside of the West. But how do we address this problem and move the discipline forward? While some question whether ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ (or ‘post-Western’) are useful labels, there are also other perspectives, including those who believe in the adequacy of existing theories and approaches, those who argue for particular national ‘schools’ of IR, and those who dismiss recent efforts to broaden IR theory as ‘mimicry’ in terms of their epistemological underpinnings. After reviewing these debates, this article identifies some avenues for further research with a view to bringing out the global heritage of IR. These include, among other things, paying greater attention to the genealogy of international systems, the diversity of regionalisms and regional worlds, the integration of area studies with IR, people-centric approaches to IR, security and development, and the agency role of non-Western ideas and actors in building global order. I also argue for broadening the epistemology of IR theory with the help of non-Western philosophies such as Buddhism. While the study of IR remains dominated by Western perspectives and contributions, it is possible to build different and alternative theories which originate from non-Western contexts and experiences.

Do norms and identity matter? Community and power in Southeast Asia's regional order

Abstract This article reviews Michael Leifers contribution to the study of Southeast Asian regionalism, particularly the role of ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Unlike some who portray Leifer as a realist or a neo-realist who totally dismissed the role of ASEAN in the regional order, this article argues that the real difference between Leifers and the newer constructivist understanding of Southeast Asia is not so much over whether regionalism matters, but under what conditions does it matter. Leifer viewed material forces, such as the prior existence of a great-power balance as a precondition of effective regionalism. He paid less attention to norm dynamics and the politics of regional identity formation. He did not consider them as independent forces in regional order. This paper argues that taking a more sociological approach, factoring in the role of regional norms and identity formation offers a more complete explanation of ASEANs achievements and failures than Leifers diplomatic investigations focusing on the balance of power. This also opens the space for a more transformative understanding of Asian security order in which socialization and institution-building are to be seen not merely as adjuncts to the balance of power dynamics, but as shapers of the regional balance of power.

Comparative Regionalism: A Field Whose Time has Come?

Is comparative regionalism a field whose time has come? While the contemporary interest in comparing regions and regionalisms may be not completely new, it is different from older approaches. Our understanding of what makes regions has changed with social constructivist and critical theoretical approaches that have led to a less behavioural and more nuanced, complex, contested and fluid understanding of regions. Moreover, the globalisation phenomenon has deeply affected all social sciences and radically redefined the relative autonomy of regions. In keeping with the rapid growth and development of regionalism and institutions in the non-Western world, including in regions which were relatively late starters, such as Asia, there have emerged new ways of looking at regional cooperation, including claims about distinctive approaches and even ‘models’ that are not only different from those identified with the EU, but also supposedly more appropriate and thus ‘workable’ for non-Western regions than the EU straightjacket.

Realism, Institutionalism, and the Asian Economic Crisis1

The Asian economic crisis has brought into sharp focus competing visions of Asian regional order put forward by Realism and Institutionalism. In the early 1990s, Institu tionalism challenged the traditional dominance of the Realist paradigm in the region. Now, it has been put on the defensive. The Asian crisis has rekindled inter-state disputes, reduced the credibility of multilateral bodies such as ASEAN, APEC and the ARF, and maybe reshaping perceptions of the regional balance of power. It has underscored the relative salience of great power leadership vis-a-vis small power-led co-operative ventures. But this article sees the Asian crisis as a double edged sword. While raising doubts about Institutionalism, it does not enhance the credibility of Realist prescriptions for regional order based on balance of power frameworks. Rather, a plethora of developments has opened up new possibilities for an Institutionalist reordering of the Asia-Pacific region.

Theorizing Southeast Asian Relations: an introduction

Abstract In the introduction, the editors discuss the emergence of a new body of literature on Southeast Asias regional relations that is both theoretically informed and stimulating. One element of this literature features a constructivist challenge to realism, traditionally the dominant perspective on Southeast Asian International Relations. Constructivist writings have helped to broaden the understanding of Southeast Asias regional order by capturing its ideational determinants (norms and identity), the agency role of local actors, and the possibility of transformation through socialization and institution building. But constructivism itself has been challenged by other perspectives, including neo-liberal, English School and critical approaches. The essays in this special issue of The Pacific Review capture this emerging debate. The editors argue that the articles in this special issue are a good indicator of the theoretical pluralism that marks the study of Southeast Asias regional relations today. Southeast Asian studies need not be dominated by either realism or constructivism, but can accommodate a diversity that vastly enriches our understanding of regional conflict and order.