Theory of Membership of Regional Cooperation: Exclusion of Rivals

• In Event: Regional Organizations: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

Existing international relations theories lack a certain efficacy in explaining why institutions are supplied or why a certain country tries to establish/supply an institution. This paper offers an alternative explanation regarding why non-security institutions are built from the supply-side perspective, with an emphasis on membership and leadership, which are intrinsically linked concepts. The key factor connecting the two concepts is “exclusion,” because exclusion of rivals is necessary in order for a state to become a leader. Our main claim is that the creation of a regional group or institution is an effective way to exclude rivals and become an actual leader: a potential leader becomes an actual leader by excluding rivals by manipulating the regional concepts. In short, our theory argues: when a country initiates international collaboration on political economy in a geographically confined area, more powerful states are not welcome.

After proposing a new theory of membership of regionalism, the paper will present a world map of regional groups proposed by various states, where regions often overlap or nested with each other, which is in a sharp contrast with Barry Buzan’s map on regional security complex. In our map, China excludes the US, and Indonesia excludes the US and China, and Thailand excludes the US, China and Indonesia to become a leader. Likewise, Brazil excludes the US, and Venezuela excludes the US and Brazil to be a leader. Then, the paper will examine the proposed theory using case studies of membership politics in Asian groupings. Using official documents at four National Archives (Australia, Japan, the UK and the US), we will show that; (i) the past Japan and current China pursued East Asian regionalism, excluding the US; (ii) Indonesia pursued Southeast Asian regionalism, excluding Japan, China and the US; (iii) the US pursued Asia-pacific regionalism, avoiding the development of subregionalism.

Author

• Shintaro Hamanaka, IDE-JETRO