INTR2010 Study Guide - Final Guide: Northeast Asia, Drainage Basin, Authoritarianism
18 Jun 2018
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(WK 1) ASIA: A REGION?
Is the Asia-Pacific a region?
Defining a region
Multiple states (3+, really many more)
Geographically continuous – however where are the boundaries? E.g. where
does Asia begin and end? Geographically is Australia or Indonesia or Papua New
Guinea part of Asia/Asia-Pacific?
Human interactions within a given space – e.g. political, economic, cultural,
etc.
Relatedness: links between regional actors – how closely linked actors are
within a region, and what relationships do actors have with external actors (outside
of the Asia-Pacific)
Understand as a region
Shared sense of identity
There are clearly a number of issues when defining a region – which human
interactions are important, the concern of boundaries, and the links – what are the
links between North-East Asia and South-East Asia, in terms of understanding
regions what happens if there are different understandings? How does regional
identity relate to individual identity or national identity or global identity?
The Concept Of Region
Despite the concept of region being widely used, it is rarely clearly defined
-In discussion of politics: region usually refers to a sub-unit of state – e.g.
Bavaria, the Midwest, Wales
-Media: use it to designate where something is happening
-IR: usually refers to something bigger than a state
The most basic requirement for a region is that it be less than the whole
international system – a species of subsystem
There is a firm consensus that regions are a specific type of subsystem
marked by the geographical adjacency and contiguity of their component parts – i.e.
the USA and Canada can form a region in a way that the USA and India cannot
The notion of the Asia-Pacific as a region is the most ambitious proposal
– seeking to connect three continents by stretching the idea of regionness across
the widest ocean on the planet if we are to consider this huge expanse as a
region, we must identify what ties t together to justify differentiating it from
the rest of the international system
Regions must be more than just a geographical subsystem- and this ‘more’
can be provided in 3 ways:
1. Shared characteristics
2. Patterned interactions
3. Shared perception
1. Shared characteristics
A region must be identified on the basis of many sorts of shared
characteristics – this includes:
-A river basin (e.g. Nile, Mekong)
-A language or culture (e.g. the Arab world)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-A particular form of government such as democracy (e.g. Western Europe) or
communism (e.g. the former Soviet empire)
-The range of a particular disease or pest (e.g. malaria)
This approach alone doesn’t take us far in understanding international regions
– though it may be an important component of them it is not clear that one would
learn much about the Asia-Pacific by looking for shared characteristics
2. Patterned Interactions
It is how regions are defined by interactions amongst their component parts
Interaction is usually the key to identifying what distinguishes an
international region from the rest of the international system
To count as a region – must display an intensity of interaction sufficient to
mark it out as a distinctive subsystem in some significant way
This is where the complexity of international regions is clear as there are
many different forms/types of interaction that might define regionness
Its important to thing about four things when understanding the link between
interactions and regions:
1. The type of interaction
-Is the region defined by military interaction, where a pattern of war, or an
interlocking set of alliances and antagonisms, identifies a particular set of
states?
-Is the region defined by economic patterns, where the patterns of trade,
investment and technology transfer grow more rapidly within a region than
between it and the rest of the world?
-Is the region defined in more cultural terms, by the movement of people, the
interplay of literature and ideas, or the networks of religious organization?
-Regions can display more than one of these types of interactions
2. The attitudes that accompanies or underlies the interaction
-Interaction is a neutral term, and its contents can range from friendly and co-
operate, through neutral and competitive, to hostile and conflictual
3. Its intensity
-How much of it is there both in an absolute sense and relative to what is
happening in the rest of the system?
-Intensity of interaction is what makes regions interesting (or not) as a level of
analysis
-In principle any level of interaction could be used to designate a region
but in practice the higher the intensity, the more credible the claim to
regionness
-One indicator of the intensity – whether a region is institutionalized or not
(this can be deceiving)
4. The boundaries that contain it (or which it defines)
-Regions could exist with firm boundaries that set them off clearly from other
parts of the international system and occasionally they do
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
-But mostly regions are a matter of relative intensity of interaction within
as opposed to without
-Where the intervening great power is geographically remote from the region
this distinction between member and outside player is easy to make – but where it
is adjacent, the distinction can be difficult
-The key is found in the relative weight of engagement in the defining
interactions of the region
3. Shared Perception
Regions can be defined by perception – essentially, if people think that a
region exists, and talk about it as if it did, then in a sense it does
Each actor may also just see itself as engaged in a set of bilateral
relationships without seeing the larger pattern that ties them together
One needs to look at the balance between the rhetoric of regionalism and
the reality in terms of actual patterns of interactions
The “idea” of the Asia Pacific
Constructing the Asia-Pacific
-Regions are constructed terms by different people for different reasons
Whose region and what time are we talking about?
-E.g. there are different ideas of what ‘far East’ Asia is
The problem of geography
A Euro-American idea
-Relates in particular to the development of the idea of the Asia-Pacific that
emerged from European imperialism, and the linking of these imperil interests –
e.g. diplomacy, trade – with a wider sphere that brings in the United States
Asia-Pacific as “ideology”
Patterns of human activity
-Some people talk about the ‘motions’ of human activity – how these actions
change over time, so what was the region in the 19th century dominated by
European power? What was the region in the 20th century? What is the region
today?
Asia towards America
-Now for the first time in years, there are real questions of America’s involvement
in the Asia-Pacific region – as America becomes more of an isolated state under
Trump’s rule, will they withdraw from their involvement in the region?
Asia-Pacific in transition
-Asia and the Asia Pacific is full of contradictions – the idea of the Asia-Pacific is
not an internal idea but one that is imposed from the outside – has been a useful
idea from external actors, i.e. imperial powers – so it has been an idea to benefit
external powers
-However now as the region is in transition, this idea is being used by internal
actors in different ways
A region?
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Human interactions within a given space e. g. political, economic, cultural, Geographically is australia or indonesia or papua new. Guinea part of asia/asia-pacific? etc. within a region, and what relationships do actors have with external actors (outside of the asia-pacific) Relatedness: links between regional actors how closely linked actors are. Despite the concept of region being widely used, it is rarely clearly defined. In discussion of politics: region usually refers to a sub-unit of state e. g. bavaria, the midwest, wales. Media: use it to designate where something is happening. Ir: usually refers to something bigger than a state. There is a firm consensus that regions are a specific type of subsystem. The notion of the asia-pacific as a region is the most ambitious proposal. Regions must be more than just a geographical subsystem- and this more". A region must be identified on the basis of many sorts of shared characteristics this includes: A language or culture (e. g. the arab world)
