Asian Regionalism Five Years after the 1997/98 Financial Crisis: A Case of ‘Co-operative Realism’?

Until the late 1980s, theorists of international relations paid little attention to the Asian region. The overwhelming majority of studies tacitly rested on mainstream realist assumptions and beyond that were more or less descriptive, chronological and narrative (Huxley 1996). Theory-building at the time was mainly inspired by superpower relations, transatlantic relations and European integration. This state of affairs changed markedly in the late 1980s. Two developments caught the interest of international relations scholars: the impact of the end of the Cold War and the Sino-Soviet conflict on international relations in Asia, on the one hand, and the enormous changes caused by economic globalization on the other. While the end of the Cold War seemingly lessened security risks and shifted attention from military affairs to economic development, the region’s unprecedented economic boom, intensifying trade relations, foreign investment and capital flows spurred economic integration in the region, creating hitherto unknown economic and political interdependencies.