Regionalism and Critical Junctures: Explaining the “Organization Gap” in Northeast Asia

Abstract

Northeast Asia, where the interests of three major nuclear powers and the world's two largest economies mingle around the unstable pivot of the Korean Peninsula, is a region rife with political and economic uncertainties. It is arguably one of the most dangerous areas in the world, plagued by security problems of global importance, including nuclear and missile proliferation. It has, to be sure, been widely touted as a region of economic promise. Yet despite Northeast Asia's demonstrable economic success at the macro level, and a panoply of highly regarded individual economic managers at the micro level, its collective economic management has nevertheless been disappointing.