2. Two Dialectics Between Polity and Economy: European and Asian Integration Processes Compared

The world has become so heterogeneous and contradictory, and simultaneously most nation–states appear too small to exert any influence upon the redesign of international institutions. Thus regional integration is a third way, explored in Europe and Asia. RÕgulation theory analyses their conditions of viability: does regional integration contribute to the long-run viability of a domestic economic growth regime, and is it legitimized by a stable political coalition? Since polity and economy interact according to ever-changing patterns, European and Asian integrations display different trajectories: a constant institutional deepening during decades and then the Eurozone major crisis versus a more pragmatic, business led and resilient trajectory in Asia. Contemporary regional integrations face four obstacles: the heterogeneity of development, the dissymmetry of geopolitical power among member states, the dominance of international finance over governments, an unbalanced approach between polity and economy. This chapter proposes one synthetic criterion concerning the dividing line between the success and failure of a regional integration project: everything is up to the compatibility of various national accumulation regimes with the rules of the game that result from intergovernmental bargaining.