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A recent literature has explored the political determinants of social spending in Europe and in global and regional samples, for example, in Latin America. We argue that social spending in the 1980-2000 period depende heavily on the prior evolution of welfare regimes in the pre-1980 period. This paper explores this proposition through an analysis of social spending and changes in social policy in three regions: East Asia, which had relatively minimal social commitments prior to the 1980s, Latin America, where social spending was relatively extensive but highly unequal in its impact, and Eastern Europe, where social spending reflected entitlements that covered large segments of the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cumulative impact of globalization and internationalization in Europe and Asia is profound. This chapter develops its argument in several steps. Sections 1 and 2 highlight, respectively, the significance of regionalism and regionalization and of globalization and internationalization. Sections 3 and 4 illustrate the different ways that globalization, internationalization and regionalization combine to create a world of open regions. They do so by investigating cultural affairs, an issue that illustrates with particular clarity the confluence of international and global factors. Section 3 analyzes cultural diplomacy, like national security, a central prerogative of the state. Internationalization theory expects persistent national differences, illustrated here by the different approaches that the Japanese and German state have taken in this policy domain. Section 4 looks at popular culture, like finance, a preferred domain for processes that are escaping state control. Globalization theory expects convergence across nations and regions. Taken together, both sections make two claims. First, different combinations of global and international effects create open regionalism in both Europe and Asia. Second, the international and global processes that create openness are not sufficiently powerful to wash away enduring regional differences that set Asia apart from Europe. Section 5 identifies these differences. In Asia the politically defining institution is the market, typically operating along ethnic or national lines. Identity capitalism is thus the characteristic practice of Asian regionalism. Europe’s defining institution is law with its primarily regulatory effects on policies and behavior. Formal political institutions are the most typical regional practice of European regionalism. The paper’s final section 6 contrasts briefly today’s open regionalism in cultural affairs with the historical experience of closed regionalism of the 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]