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Domestic legitimacy politics and varieties of regionalism in East Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2013

Abstract

What drives East Asian regionalism? The rise of China and the perceived decline in the influence of the United States have sparked debates about the future of the regional order, including the yet-unresolved question of whose leadership is likely to be more stable and accepted as legitimate by other regional actors. What is puzzling, however, is that persistent demands for the formation of a coherent and uniquely East Asian regional institution have come not from China or the US, as is the focus of existing studies, but rather Japan and South Korea. In this article, we propose an alternative framework that conceptualises the varieties of East Asian regionalism, emphasising the multiple pivots and variegated levels of politics involved in efforts toward regional cooperation. We find that competing proposals for East Asian regionalism since the 1990s are not determined by structural pressures or the convergence of interests but rather result from domestic legitimacy politics. Japanese and Korean leaders have, at different time periods, proposed their own alternative region-making initiatives appealing to domestically contested views on how best to seek autonomy from the region's Great Powers as a way to enhance their political standing domestically and regionally.

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Articles
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Copyright © British International Studies Association 2013 

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79 Ibid., p. 461.

80 This is a term (and sentiment) that has shown staying power, widely seen and heard in politicians’ comments, media reports, and everyday conversations. Most recently, an article making headlines in the Joongang Ilbo discussed the damaging of gukgyuk from a pending misdemeanor charge against a South Korean government official who reportedly harassed a female intern during his visit to Washington DC earlier this year. See ‘“I Have No Prior Contact with Yoon Chang-jung, but I volunteered to defend him because…”’ Joongang Ilbo (15 July 2013).

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89 Ibid., p. 124.

90 Ibid., p. 113.

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97 Pastreich, ‘The Balancer’.

98 Munhwa Ilbo (15 April 2005).

99 Donga Ilbo (15 April 2005).

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107 Remarks by H. E. Mr. Taro Aso, minister for Foreign Affairs at the 60th Meeting of the Board of Counsellors at Nippon Keidanren (25 December 2006), available at: {http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/fm/aso/speech0612.html}.

108 Yul Sohn, ‘Japan's New Regionalism: China Shock, Values, and the East Asian Community’, Asian Survey, 50:3 (May/June 2010), pp. 497–519; Bates Gill and Michael J. Green, ‘Unbundling Asia's New Multilateralism’, in Green and Gill (eds), Asia's New Multilateralism (2009), pp. 1–29.

109 David Fouse, ‘Japan's “values-oriented diplomacy”’, New York Times (21 March 2007).

110 Rozman, Northeast Asia's Stunted Regionalism, p. 150.

111 Sohn, ‘Japan's New Regionalism’.

112 The case studies analysed in this article offer plausibility probes of our theoretical framework. Possible extensions of this research include content analysis of leaders’ speeches and official policy statements in order to demonstrate more systematically the types of variation in regionalism initiatives in East Asia.

113 Pempel, ‘Soft Balancing, Hedging, and Institutional Darwinism’, p. 230.

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117 Beeson, ‘East Asian Regionalism and the End of the Asia-Pacific’, p. 2.

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120 Lacking its own strategy toward North Korea, China also issued a ‘three-step’ proposal for resuming the Six Party talks, which would begin with inter-Korean talks and then US-North Korean negotiations, followed by the Six-Party talks. Sunny Lee, ‘China proposes Seoul lead nuclear talks’, Asia Times (15 April 2011).

121 We thank an anonymous reviewer for alerting us to this larger point. Similarly, William Tow and Brandon Taylor argue that the lack of consensus among regional actors on what the regional security architecture actually means contributes to the difficulty of establishing an effective regional security mechanism. See Tow, William T. and Taylor, Brendan, ‘What is Asian security architecture?’, Review of International Studies, 36 (2010), p. 116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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123 Beeson, Mark, Regionalism and Globalization in East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), p. 227Google Scholar.

124 ‘President Hu calls for cooperation’, People's Daily (16 April 2011).

125 ‘Abe promotes expanding regional ties’, Yomiuri Shimbun (30 December 2012).