Whose Ideas Matter?: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism

Amitav Acharya

Published by Cornell University Press 2011

Whose Ideas Matter?

Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism

Amitav Acharya

In the series Cornell Studies in Political Economy

https://doi.org/10.7591/9780801459757

Overview
Contents

About this book

Whose Ideas Matter? is the first book to explore the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system from the perspective of local actors, with Asian regional institutions as its main focus.

Author / Editor information

Amitav Acharya is Professor of International Affairs at American University, Washington, D.C. He was Professor of Global Governance at the University of Bristol. He is the author of The Making of Southeast Asia, also from Cornell, and Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia and coeditor of Crafting Cooperation.

Reviews

T.J. Pempel, University of California, Berkeley:

When it comes to Asian regional institutions the ideas that have mattered most have not, Amitav Acharya argues, been those of external Western thinkers that eventually wormed their way into resistant local cultures. Instead, this tightly argued book demonstrates that the deeply rooted norms and values of Southeast Asians themselves were truly definitive. By so privileging the constructive power of indigenous thinkers and their ideas Acharya provides fresh insights on the relationship between ideas and agency that will be influential well beyond Asia.

Jeffrey T. Checkel, Professor and Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security, School for International Studies, Simon Fraser University:

Amitav Acharya's book is a must-read for students of regionalism, international relations theorists, and constructivists. In this carefully argued account, he gives domestic politics and agency pride of place. This not only fills significant—and serious—gaps in recent constructivist theorizing; equally important, it gives us a powerful analytic frame for understanding the unique contours and features of Asian multilateralism.

Stephan Haggard, Krause Professor, Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego:

Amitav Acharya has led the way in thinking not only about the international relations of Southeast Asia but also about how to conceptualize international security more generally. This is another important contribution from him, with fascinating new historical material on the evolution of ASEAN.

Ryoma Sakaeda:

In this book, Acharya arguably provides the most clearly stated volume in support of the constructivist tenet that a relatively low level of cooperation in Asia nevertheless has to be regarded as an outcome of normative interactions.

Oliver Hensengerth:

Especially when discussing the Cold War period, the work is an important contribution to the understanding of the history of multilateral cooperation in the region. It usefully complements rational theorizing, as well as the usual explanations of why ASEAN is so weakly institutionalized: incomplete processes of nation-building (for instance in Cambodia and Timor-Leste); intra-ASEAN dissonances (for instance about the future regional role of the United States and China, and contested territorialities in the South China Sea); and the vast economic, social, cultural and political differences between the countries.

Sheldon W. Simon:

Whose Ideas Matter? constitutes a carefully constructed historical argument about Asian regionalism that challenges the prevalent top-down constructivist view that ideational forces move exclusively from Western institutions to Asian organizations. Employing primary sources, including interviews with relevant officials and original documents from regional conferences, Acharya demonstrates that Asian actors modified Western ideas to conform to existing Asian concerns. This is an important book, the most thorough explication of how constructivist theory enhances understanding of Asian regionalism. Amitav Acharya has written not only the most thorough application of constructivist theory on Asian regionalism but he has also added a new dimension to that theory on the localization of norm diffusion.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations and Tables Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
1. Why Study the Norm Dynamics of Asian Regionalism? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Perspectives on Norm Diffusion Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
3. Ideas and Power: Non- Intervention and Collective Defense Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
4. Constructing Asia’s Cognitive Prior Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	69
5. Resistance and Change: Common Security and Collective Intervention Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	112
6. Conclusions, Extensions, and Extrapolations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
Appendix: Key Concepts, Regional Definition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Bibliography of Primary Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	183

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 200
Illustrations
- Other: 10 tables, 4 line drawings, 2 halftones
Keywords: Political Science & Political History; General Economics; Asian Studies

eBook

Published: December 15, 2010
ISBN: 9780801459757