East Asian Regionalism from the Bottom-Up

Abstract

Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism. Edited by Peter J. Katzenstein, Takashi Shiraishi. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. 344 pp., $49.95 cloth (ISBN: 0-8014-4400-4), $24.95 paper (ISBN: 0-8014-7250-4). The regional dynamics of East Asia have become increasingly exciting for social science scholars, especially during the last 10 years—since the Asian financial crisis. Beyond Japan: The Dynamics of East Asian Regionalism , edited by Peter Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi, focuses on Japan and its interactions within East Asia, asserting that “East Asia is moving rapidly beyond any one national model” (p. 2) toward a new “hybridized” form. In his introductory chapter, Katzenstein sets the context for this new regional dynamics, explaining how “porous” regions have been produced by the fusion of international and global processes (see also Katzenstein 2005). He emphasizes that the process of hybridization in East Asia, which blends Japanization and Americanization with the touch of emerging Sinicization, leads to an “Asianization” of regional processes that range from production networks to environmental problems. New actors beyond governments—such as nongovernmental organizations, individual citizens, consumers, and corporations—participate actively in “region-making” through market-based mechanisms that shape the hybrid regionalism in the new East Asia. Beyond Japan is a sequel to Katzenstein and Shiraishi's (1997) widely cited earlier book entitled Network Power: Japan and Asia , in which they questioned whether East Asia will be dominated by Japan, China, or the United States (p. 3). Beyond Japan implicitly answers this future looking question, essentially arguing that East Asia has established its own system—a system that does not allow single-handed domination by any of the major powers or national models. To support and substantiate this claim empirically, Beyond Japan makes three sets of arguments in three clusters of chapters. The first cluster focuses exclusively on the economic, political, and social changes experienced by Japan, especially during the last 10–15 years. T. J. Pempel, with his customary clarity, sorts out the puzzle as to how and why Japan has yet to experience a …