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Research:Publications:Asian Regional Integration Review (ARIR)

“Asian Regional Integration Review Vol. 2 ” has been published .

2010.03.26

Editor’s Note

Tsuneo Akaha

Asian Regional Integration Review (Vol. 2) includes six research articles and two book reviews. As in the first volume published in 2009, the research articles contained in the current volume were written by young scholars who presented earlier versions at the Summer Institute on Regional Integration 2009, organized by the Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI), Waseda University. The Institute, as in the previous year, provided an excellent opportunity for Ph.D. students from around the world to discuss their research-in-progress with their peers and more senior scholars in attendance. Most students who participated in the Institute submitted their revised papers for consideration for publication in the Review and the papers were reviewed by faculty of the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, Waseda University for relevance, timeliness, substantive depth, and originality. Six of them were selected for further revision and for inclusion in this volume. All articles selected for this volume deal with contemporary issues related to regional integration in Asia. Sapkota’s statistical analysis documents the impact of regional integration, seen as part of globalization, on the reduction of poverty gap between the developed and developing countries of Asia. His findings support regional integration as a way of spreading the benefits of liberal globalization in the region. Pajon’s article looks into the motives behind Japan and India’s ongoing efforts to boost their political and economic ties, and the implications for East Asian regional integration. She sees promising signs of bilateral cooperation, in part as a result of China’s rise, but also its limits. Ong’s qualitative analysis explores the proposition that the current global-regional economic-financial crisis will help strengthen the momentum toward regional integration in East Asia just as the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis did. He finds very mixed results. Wirth compares the form and scale of bilateral cooperation between China and Japan in traditional and non-traditional security fields to examine the hypothesis that non-traditional security issues are more conducive to bilateral cooperation than traditional ones. The author states that the evidence is inconclusive but that the proposition is still plausible. Knudson’s analysis of the New York Times coverage of Asia-related topics confirms his impression that there is a lack of media attention in the United States to the growing regional integration trends in Asia, and it posits implications for regional integration without substantial US participation. Beamer provides a case study of a Japanese folk art to explore the potential of traditional art to provide a cultural value linkage between communities across national borders. All of the studies presented here are exploratory and do not offer definitive conclusions on the questions they raise. However, they represent promising attempts at applying theoretical and empirical studies of the more senior scholars in the field and also suggest some novel approaches and topics that beg for further research. The two book reviews by Professor Kamikubo and Professor Kim introduce recent analyses of competitive regionalism and FTAs and provide a timely assessment of the advances being made in the study of Asian regional integration.

Contents

Editor's Note

Tsuneo Akaha

Contributors

Globalization's Convergence Effect on Human Quality of Life (QQL) in Asia: Evidence from the KOF Index of Globalization
Jeet Sapkota

Significance of the Japan-India Partnership for East Asian Regionalism
Celine Pajon

Banking on East Asian Integration? Implications of Global Financial Crisis for Regionalism
Bernard Ong

The Nexus between Traditional and Non-Traditional Security Cooperation in Japan-China Relations: Environmental Security and the Construction of a Northeast Asian Region
Christian Wirth

Asian Integration's Low Visibility in the United States Elite Press: The Vicious Cycle of Rational Ignorance?
Troy Knudson

Reviving Japanese "Traditional" Industries: Prospects and Strategies for Asian Regional Integration
Jennifer Beamer

Book Review Essays

Mireya Solis, Barbara Stallings, and Saori N. Katada, eds., Competitive Regionalism: FTA Diffusion in the Pacific Rim, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Masato Kamikubo

Vinod K. Aggarwal and Shujiro Urata, eds., Bilateral Trade Arrangements in the Asia-Pacific: Origins, Evolution, and Implications, New York: Routledge, 2006.
Jemma Kim

Editorial Staff

Managing Editor
Tsuneo Akaha
Professor of International Policy Studies and Director, Center for East Asian Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies
Senior Fellow, Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI)

Associate Editor
Sachiko Hirakawa
Junior Researcher, Waseda University Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies
Assistant Professor, Global Institute for Asian Regional Integration (GIARI)

Editorial Assistant
Mitsuko Akaha
Graduate Student, Monterey Institute of International Studies

Asian Regional Integration Review (ARIR) Vol.2


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