Regional Asymmetric Relationships

Abstract

While the preceding chapter concentrated on the effects of simultaneity on multilateral asymmetry, the present chapter focuses on the effects of location in a multilateral context. Both simultaneity and location are necessary parts of any multilateral interaction. Nevertheless, these elements can be separated analytically because the calculus of reducing uncertainty is individual while the location of each country in a relatively stable matrix of neighbors tends to create a standing pattern of exposure and interactions. As the Washington-Beijing-Taipei triangle illustrated, it is possible to have multilateral calculi reach beyond the neighborhood. Political communities, however, bloom where they are planted, and patterns of regional relationships emerge from the reiteration of interactions, from located history, and from the expectation that the neighbors will remain in place into the unknown future. The term “region” is used very broadly in world politics, and it should be. It could be restricted to organized regions such as the EU or ASEAN, but clearly it is also meaningful to discuss the problems of the Middle East, Northeast Asia, or South America. Even when a regional organization exists, it is not necessarily coterminous with the region (for example, Switzerland is certainly European though not a member of the EU), nor do organizational politics completely displace the regional politics of members. Moreover, world politics does not break down into a comprehensive set of stable, mutually exclusive regions. One can speak meaningfully about the successor states of the former Soviet Union and also about Central Asia, for instance. The first task, therefore, will be to survey the variety of regional designations. The second task will be to define regions. I will argue that the utility of regional designations results from their locatedness as matrices of interaction, and that the empirical slipperiness of regional designations results from the fact that they are subsystems rather than autonomous systems. The midrange existence of regions, between individual sovereignty and global interaction, creates characteristic problems for regional relationships. A regional power is neither the neighborhood sovereign nor a global power, and the existence of broader horizons beyond the region conditions the relationships within.