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The purpose of this paper is to critically review the current discourses on "global governance" and to suggest an East Asian view of alternative governance mechanism from the perspective of "soft power. " This paper argues that many countries in the East Asian region have been either reluctantly or unknowingly following the global governance building, led by the "Western" countries, and therefore have failed to build a safety net for themselves in the form of a "region" or regional cooperation. Global governance is connected to the realm of soft power as it affects the preferences and behaviors of the actors while regarding the actual use of physical coercive forces as a last resort. Therefore, it is necessary to expand the discourse of global governance to include the discussion of soft power, and the East Asian region may need to develop its safety net by creating its own soft power and regional governance mechanism. Here, speech acts and standard setting are the prerequisites in developing East Asian soft power. Therefore this paper argues that East Asian actors use the concepts like the "East Asian Governance," "East Asian Standard," "East Asian Consensus" more frequently and intensely than before even if those terms still do not have concrete substances and contents to be intersubjectively taken by the actors in the region. As people use and speak of the terms more often and intensely, there will be more concrete efforts by the East Asian actors to substantiate the concepts, and the contents of East Asian governance will gradually evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a theoretically grounded empirical contribution aimed at shedding light on Japan's leadership role in promoting regional integration in East Asia. It questions the viability of institutionalised regional collaboration and offers a framework of regional-integrationist approaches to the formation of an East Asian Integration Regime (EAIR). A key finding of this paper is that Japan's regional projects are directly linked to the promotion of an effective regional integration regime in East Asia. Since the advent of the East Asian crisis in 1997-8, Japan's regional policies have promoted a particular form of institutionalised regional collaboration, which has acted as an impetus for promoting a regional integration regime in East Asia. This is illustrated by the lifecycle of regime development, which involves a three-stage process of EAIR formation: 1) emergence: 2) evolution; and 3) institutionalization. In trying to identify the importance of functional-institutional efficiency in the formation of an EAIR, this paper provides a relatively, detailed chronological account of the three analytical frameworks: 1) the emergence of the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC); 2) the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) + 3 (China, Japan and South Korea) Summit; and 3) the institutionalisation of ASEAN + 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to explore the implications of social capital in East Asia for the citizens' attitudes toward political engagement and the quality of governance using the fourth wave of the Asian Barometer Survey. Using multilevel analysis, it attempts to disentangle individual level and country level factors in explaining generalized trust and other political involvement variables. In doing so, it aims to enrich the theory of social capital based on the experience and evidence from East Asia. The analysis finds that formal membership tends to decrease generalized trust, which independently increases political involvement. It also finds that Confucianism at the country level tends to dampen political engagement. It suggests that most formal group in this region might be characterized as bonding and the citizens in Confucian culture might still be characterized as allegiant rather than assertive citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite several similarities in the rise and development of economic regionalism, widely different institutional arrangements have been formed in Europe and East Asia. Rational-functionalist approaches do not provide an appropriate explanation of why this is so. This paper seeks to answer this question by borrowing insights from historical institutionalist accounts. The research shows that economic interdependence and policy needs alone cannot explain the timing of regional economic initiatives and the path-dependent nature of institutional development. Historical and structural conditions including external pressures and their nature can have long-term effects on institutional forms. Human factors, however, including ideas and leadership can play a crucial role as well, especially in times of historical and structural changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the question of whether the stability of financial markets is damaged by foreigner's stock investment by estimating its dynamic relationships with stock price and exchange rate in East Asia, focusing on the 2007-2009 global financial crisis. We find that the negative effects of foreigner's stock investment on stock price and exchange rate are much stronger during a crisis than in normal times in many East Asian countries. This finding suggests that foreigner's stock investment could act as a destabilizing factor in domestic financial markets, especially in the face of global financial disturbances. In particular, the Korean exchange market is found to be most vulnerable to the global shocks among East Asian countries. As the impact of the global common shocks turns out to be very substantial in East Asian countries, policy makers should strengthen financial cooperation within this region. Increasing the intra-regional trades in stocks is expected to promote the financial stability in this region by providing opportunities for sharing investment risks among East Asian countries. In addition, regulatory measure such as the Tobin tax may be useful in limiting capital movements against a possible crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]