Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-10T11:22:56.731Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Embedding regional actors in social and historical context: Australia-New Zealand integration and Asian-Pacific regionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2017

Matthew Castle
Matthew Castle*
Affiliation:
Fellow of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (CIPSS), McGill University
*
*Correspondence to: Matthew Castle, Department of Political Science, McGill University, Leacock Building, 855 Sherbrooke Street West, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T7, Canada. Author’s email: matthew.castle@mail.mcgill.ca
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The regionalisation of the world economy is one of the most important developments in global governance in the past two decades. This process has seen ‘inter-regional’ economic agreements emerge between two or more regional groupings. Drawing mainly on the European Union’s external relations, observers accordingly point to the growing importance of regional actors, explaining their agency (or ‘actorness’) with regional attributes such as (supranational) institutional design, size, and member state cohesion. This article challenges this dominant explanation of regional agency. It argues that regional actors are socially, politically, and historically ‘embedded’. Agency reflects the contingency of regional integration processes, the motivations that underpin those processes, and the specific relationships between regions and third parties. This approach explains an important case of inter-regionalism from the Asia-Pacific: CER-ASEAN relations. Since the early 1990s, Australia and New Zealand have used their ‘Closer Economic Relations’ trade agreement for relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. This reflects the ambitions of Australasian officials to shape processes of Asian-Pacific regionalism, and the interests of ASEAN officials in consolidating their own process of transnational market-making. Here, regional agency owed to a transforming world economy and the reconceptualisation of regions within new networks of trade governance.

Keywords

Asia-PacificAustralasiaEmbeddednessEuropean UnionInter-regionalismRegional Integration
Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 151 - 173
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘PTAs’ in general should not be confused with the ASEAN PTA in particular.

2 Doidge, Mathew, The European Union and Interregionalism: Patterns of Engagement (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011)Google Scholar; Hettne, Björn, ‘Regional actorship: a comparative approach to interregionalism’, in Francis Baert, Tiziana Scaramagli, and Fredrik Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism: Regions, Global Governance and the EU (Dordrecht: Springer, 2014), pp. 55–70 Google Scholar.

3 Hulse, Merran, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union: Comparing the international trade actorness of SADC and Ecowas’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 52:3 (2014), pp. 547–565 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Acharya, Amitav, ‘Regionalism beyond EU-centrism’, in Tanja A. Börzel and Thomas Risse (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), ch. 7 (online)Google Scholar; Hameiri, Shahar, ‘Theorising regions through changes in statehood: Rethinking the theory and method of comparative regionalism’, Review of International Studies, 39:2 (2013), pp. 313–335 Google Scholar.

5 Granovetter, Mark, ‘Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness’, American Journal of Sociology, 91:3 (1985), pp. 481–510 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The comprehensiveness of AANZFTA relative to ASEAN’s other agreements is based on the Design of Trade Agreements (DESTA) database, presented in Dür, Andreas, Baccini, Leonardo, and Elsig, Manfred, ‘The design of international trade agreements: Introducing a new dataset’, Review of International Organizations, 9:3 (2014), pp. 353–375 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 The ten members of ASEAN are Brunei, Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The six ‘+1’ states are Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.

8 New Zealand MFAT, ‘The ASEAN-CER Integration Partnership Forum’ (2016), available at: {https://www.mfat.govt.nz/en/countries-and-regions/south-east-asia/association-of-south-east-asian-nations-asean/the-asean-cer-integration-partnership-forum/} accessed 20 June 2016.

9 Leslie, John, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design: Australasian policymakers, Europe and Asian-Pacific economic integration’, Asia-Europe Journal, 13:2 (2015), pp. 193–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Hettne, ‘Actorship’. This article uses the term ‘agency’ as a more neutral alternative to ‘actorness’ or ‘actorship’, terms which have come to be associated with a specific literature dealing with the EU’s foreign policy.

11 Leslie, John and Elijah, Annmarie, ‘Does N = 2? Trans-Tasman economic integration as a comparator for the Single European Market’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 50:6 (2012), pp. 975–993 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 While Australia and New Zealand also cooperate with the countries of the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) through a CER-Mercosur dialogue, this has so far resulted in no concrete outcomes. May 2017 saw the resumption of CER-Mercosur talks after a five-year hiatus: ‘Mercosur resumes trade talks with Australia and New Zealand’, MercoPress (6 May 2017), available online at: {http://en.mercopress.com/2017/05/06/mercosur-resumes-trade-talks-with-australia-and-new-zealand}.

13 The breakdown in trade negotiations between ASEAN and the EU after 2009 is an obvious example, as is the current difficulty faced by the EU in concluding agreements with Canada and the United States (US).

14 Acharya, ‘Regionalism beyond EU-centrism’.

15 Doidge, Mathew, ‘Interregionalism and the European Union: Conceptualizing group-to-group relations’, in Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism, p. 44 Google Scholar; Hettne, ‘Actorship’.

16 Hettne, Björn and Söderbaum, Fredrik, ‘Theorising the rise of regionness’, New Political Economy, 5:3 (2000), pp. 457–472 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Allen, David and Smith, Michael, ‘Western Europe’s presence in the contemporary international arena’, Review of International Studies, 16:1 (1990), pp. 19–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism; Doidge, ‘Interregionalism’.

19 Adelmann, Martin, ‘Beyond aid and trade: Theoretical and practical perspectives on SADC external relations’, in Anton Bösl, Willie Breytenbach, Trudi Hartzenberg, Colin McCarthy, and Klaus Schade (eds), Monitoring Regional Integration in Southern Africa (Stellenbosch: Tralac, 2009), pp. 26–42 Google Scholar; Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism; Hänggi, Heiner, Roloff, Ralf, and Rüland, Jürgen (eds), Interregionalism and International Relations (Milton Park: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Hettne, ‘Actorship’; Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’; Ribeiro-Hoffmann, Andrea, ‘Inter- and transregionalism’, in Börzel and Risse (eds), Comparative Regionalism, ch. 27 Google Scholar; Wunderlich, Uwe, ‘The EU an Actor Sui Generis? A comparison of EU and ASEAN Actorness’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 50:4 (2012), pp. 653–669 Google Scholar.

20 Doidge, ‘Interregionalism’, p. 51; Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism.

21 Haas, Ernst B., ‘International integration: the European and the universal process’, International Organization, 15:3 (1961), pp. 366–392 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Lombaerde, Philippe, Söderbaum, Fredrik, Van Langenhove, Luk, and Baert, Francis, ‘The problem of comparison in comparative regionalism’, Review of International Studies, 36:3 (2010), pp. 731–753 Google Scholar; Leslie and Elijah, ‘N=2’; Warleigh-Lack, Alex and Rosamond, Ben, ‘Across the EU studies-new regionalism frontier: Invitation to a dialogue’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 48:4 (2010), pp. 990–1013 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Ribeiro-Hoffmann, ‘Inter- and transregionalism’.

23 Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism.

24 Hameiri, ‘Theorising regions’.

25 Acharya, ‘Regionalism beyond EU-centrism’; Söderbaum, Fredrik, ‘Old, new, and comparative regionalism: the history and scholarly development of the field’, in Börzel and Risse (eds), Comparative Regionalism, ch. 2 (online)Google Scholar.

26 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’; Leslie, John and Elijah, Annmarie, ‘From one single market to another: European integration, Australasian ambivalence and construction of the Trans-Tasman Single Economic Market’, in Annika Björkdahl, Natalia Chaban, John Leslie, and Annick Masselot (eds), Importing E.U. Norms: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Findings (Heidelberg: Springer, 2015), pp. 79–95 Google Scholar.

27 Castle, Matthew, Le Quesne, Simon, and Leslie, John, ‘Divergent paths of state-society relations in European and trans-Tasman economic integration’, Journal of European Integration, 38:1 (2016), pp. 41–59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leslie and Elijah, ‘N=2’.

28 Following source documents relied on for research, ‘CER’ denotes Australia and New Zealand acting in concert, even when this does not relate specifically to the 1983 ANZCERTA.

29 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’; Leslie and Elijah, ‘From one single market to another’.

30 Hänggi, Heiner, Roloff, Ralf, and Rüland, Jürgen, ‘Interregionalism: a new phenomenon in international relations’, in Hänggi, Roloff, and Rüland (eds), Interregionalism and International Relations, p. 6 Google Scholar.

31 Katzenstein, Peter J., ‘Regionalism in comparative perspective’, Cooperation and Conflict, 31:2 (1996), pp. 123–159 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 CER-ASEAN ministerial meetings were a regular fixture from the mid-1990s, and although market access was negotiated bilaterally between individual countries for AANZFTA, negotiations also took place during ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM)-CER consultations: Michael Mugliston, ‘Negotiating the ASEAN-Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement’, Intergovernmental Relations Conference: A Practical Approach in a Changing Landscape (21 July 2009), p. 10. See also the report commissioned at a 1999 AEM-CER meeting on the feasibility of an inter-regional agreement, which discusses the motivations of ‘CER’ and ‘ASEAN’, referring to them as ‘regional groups’: High Level Task Force, ‘The Angkor Agenda: Report of the High Level Task Force on the AFTA-CER Free Trade Area’ (2000), available at: {http://www.dfat.gov.au/fta/aanzfta/angkor-agenda.pdf} para. 2.1.

33 Baert, Francis, Scaramagli, Tiziana, and Söderbaum, Fredrik, ‘Introduction: Intersecting interregionalism’, in Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism, p. 4 Google Scholar.

34 ASEAN standards bodies and their CER counterparts met throughout the 1990s. For a fuller discussion, see Matthew Castle, ‘Forging an Australasian Region: Trans-Tasman Integration and Interregionalism in the Asia-Pacific’ (unpublished MA thesis, Victoria University of Wellington, 2012), pp. 68–70.

35 Hettne, ‘Actorship’, 59.

36 Polanyi, Karl, The Great Transformation (New York; Toronto: Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., 1944)Google Scholar.

37 Granovetter, ‘Embeddedness’, p. 487.

38 Granovetter, ‘Embeddedness’, pp. 493–504; Williamson, Oliver, Markets and Hierarchies (New York: Free Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

39 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’, pp. 207–8; Leslie, John, ‘Sequencing, people movements and mass politicization in European and Trans-Tasman Single Markets’, Government and Opposition, 51:2 (2016), pp. 294–326 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Castle, Le Quesne, and Leslie, ‘Divergent paths of state-society relations’, p. 44; Hameiri, ‘Theorising regions’.

40 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’, pp. 201–2.

41 Mansfield, Edward D. and Milner, Helen V., ‘The new wave of regionalism’, International Organization, 53:3 (1999), pp. 589–627 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mattli, Walter, The Logic of Regional Integration: Europe and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

42 Baldwin, Richard E., ‘The causes of regionalism’, The World Economy, 20:7 (1997), pp. 865–888 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Söderbaum, ‘Old, new, and comparative regionalism’.

44 Ibid.; Hettne, ‘Actorship’; Hettne and Söderbaum, ‘Rise of regionness’.

45 Grieco, Joseph M., ‘State interests and institutional rule trajectories: a neorealist interpretation of the Maastricht Treaty and European Economic and Monetary Union’, Security Studies, 5:3 (1996), pp. 261–306 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 In the ASEAN context, see Nguitragool, Paruedee and Rüland, Jürgen, ASEAN as an Actor in International Fora: Reality, Potential and Constraints (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

47 These are commonly identified as ‘balancing’; ‘institution building’; ‘rationalising’ of pre-defined issues; ‘agenda-setting’ to advance cooperative goals at the multilateral level; and ‘collective identity formation’: Rüland, Jürgen, ‘Balancers, multilateral utilities or regional identity builders? International Relations and the study of interregionalism’, Journal of European Public Policy, 17:8 (2010), pp. 1271–1283 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism.

48 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism; Doidge, Matthew, ‘Joined at the hip: Regionalism and interregionalism’, Journal of European Integration, 29:2 (2007), pp. 229–248 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hettne, ‘Actorship’.

49 Groenleer, Martijn L. P. and Van Schaik, Louise G., ‘United we stand? The European Union’s international actorness in the cases of the International Criminal Court and the Kyoto Protocol’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 45:5 (2007), pp. 969–998 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’; Wunderlich, ‘EU and ASEAN actorness’.

51 Doidge, ‘Joined at the hip’, p. 234.

52 Hettne, ‘Actorship’, p. 59. Hettne’s intriguing suggestion of a ‘dialectic’ is unfortunately not further developed.

53 Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’, p. 551.

54 Allen and Smith, ‘Western Europe’s presence’; Bretherton, Charlotte and Vogler, John, The European Union as a Global Actor (2nd edn, London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism, p. 24; Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’.

55 da Conceição-Heldt, Eugénia and Meunier, Sophie, ‘Speaking with a single voice: Internal cohesiveness and external effectiveness of the EU in global governance’, Journal of European Public Policy, 21:7 (2014), pp. 971–975 Google Scholar.

56 Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’, p. 552.

57 Costa, Oriol and Erik Jørgensen, Knud (eds), The Influence of International Institutions on the EU: When Multilateralism Hits Brussels (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Obviously there is some overlap between the two pillars of an embeddedness approach, although the separation is analytically useful.

59 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism, pp. 23–4.

60 George, Alexander L. and Bennett, Andrew, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), p. 20 Google Scholar.

61 New Zealand MFA, Internal Telegram from Wellington to Singapore, File no. 1301, 24 December 1973, para. 2.

62 Animal husbandry, dental health, forestry, the end-uses of ASEAN timber in New Zealand, and trade expansion.

63 New Zealand MFA, ‘ASEAN/New Zealand Joint Trade Study Group’, Internal Telegram from Canberra to Wellington, File no: 302, 22 February 1977.

64 New Zealand MFA, Confidential Internal Fax from Canberra to Wellington, File no. 2222, 26 September 1978, para. 9.

65 Ibid.

66 Bollard, Alan and Mayes, David, ‘Regionalism and the Pacific Rim’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 30:2 (1992), pp. 195–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Mein Smith, Philippa, ‘Did Muldoon really “go too slowly” with CER?’, New Zealand Journal of History, 41:2 (2007), pp. 161–179 Google Scholar.

68 Blainey, Geoffrey, The Tyranny of Distance: How Distance Shaped Australia’s History (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1966)Google Scholar.

69 Castle, Le Quesne, and Leslie , ‘Divergent paths of state-society relations’, p. 51; Leslie and Elijah, ‘From one single market to another’, pp. 83–4.

70 Mein Smith, ‘CER’, p. 167.

71 Mein Smith, Philippa and Hempenstall, Peter, ‘Rediscovering the trans-Tasman world’, in Philippa Mein Smith, Peter Hempenstall, and Shaun Goldfinch (eds), Remaking the Tasman World (Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 2008), pp. 13–30 Google Scholar.

72 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’; Smith, Anthony L., ‘The AFTA-CER dialogue: a New Zealand perspective on an emerging trade area linkage’, ASEAN Economic Bulletin, 14:3 (1998), pp. 238–252 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

73 ASEAN and CER Ministers, ‘Joint Press Statement on Informal Consultations between AEM and the Ministers from the CER Countries’ (1995), available at: {http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-economic-community/item/informal-consultations-between-aem-and-the-ministers-from-the-cer-countries-9-september-1995-brunei-darussalam} accessed December 2011.

74 New Zealand MFAT, ‘AFTA/CER: SOM’, Fax from Wellington to ASEAN Posts, File no:104/434/14, 7 June 1996, para. 9.

75 Interview with Michael Mugliston, December 2011.

76 Lee Davis, Warwick McKibbin, and Andrew Stoeckel, ‘Economic benefits from an AFTA-CER Free Trade Area: Year 2000 study’, Report prepared for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Canberra and Sydney: Centre for International Economics, 2000).

77 Ibid., p. 12.

78 Ibid., p. 13.

79 Interview with author, November 2011.

80 The most recent seminar (in Melbourne on 15 March 2016) was the fifth.

81 MFAT, ‘Integration Partnership Forum’.

82 Simon Power, ‘Remaking the Trans-Tasman World’, Speech to the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (13 October 2009), available at: {http://www.beehive.govt.nz/speech/remaking-trans-tasman-world} accessed December 2011.

83 Mein Smith, ‘CER’.

84 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’, pp. 204–7.

85 Solingen, Etel, ‘ASEAN, “Quo Vadis”? Domestic coalitions and regional co-operation’, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 21:1 (1999), pp. 30–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Solingen, Etel, ‘The genesis, design and effects of regional institutions: Lessons from East Asia and the Middle East’, International Studies Quarterly, 52:2 (2008), pp. 261–294 Google Scholar.

86 Stubbs, Richard, ‘Signing on to liberalization: AFTA and the politics of regional economic cooperation’, The Pacific Review, 13:2 (2000), pp. 297–318 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robles, Alfredo C., ‘The ASEAN Free Trade Area and the construction of a Southeast Asian economic community in East Asia’, Asian Journal of Political Science, 12:2 (2004), pp. 78–108 Google Scholar.

87 Castle, Le Quesne, and Leslie , ‘Divergent paths of state-society relations’.

88 Robles, ‘The ASEAN Free Trade Area’.

89 Stubbs, ‘Signing on to liberalization’.

90 East Asian Analytical Unit, ASEAN Free Trade Area: Trading Bloc or Building Bloc? (Canberra: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, 1994)Google Scholar.

91 Smith, ‘AFTA-CER’, p. 238.

92 AEM-CER Ministerial Meetings have continued annually – 2015 saw the 20th AEM-CER Consultations held in Kuala Lumpur.

93 Stubbs, ‘Signing on to liberalization’.

94 Solingen, ‘Regional institutions’.

95 New Zealand MFAT, ‘AFTA/CER: Update’ Internal MFAT Communication’, File no. 104/434/14, [n.d.] 1995, para. 6

96 Robles, ‘The ASEAN Free Trade Area’.

97 ASEAN Secretariat, ‘The AFTA-CER Linkage’, available at: {http://www.asean.org/communities/asean-economic-community/item/the-afta-cer-linkage} accessed May 2015.

98 Bollard and Mayes, ‘Regionalism’, p. 199; Leslie and Elijah, ‘N=2’.

99 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism, pp. 23–4; Wunderlich, ‘EU and ASEAN actorness’, p. 664.

100 Adelmann, ‘Beyond aid and trade’; Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’.

101 Hoadley, Steve, New Zealand and Australia: Negotiating Closer Economic Relations (Wellington: NZIIA, 1995), ch. 5 Google Scholar; Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’, p. 203.

102 Ibid.

103 The ACCSQ consists of the Chief Executives of the respective standard setting bodies of the ASEAN countries.

104 MFAT, ‘AFTA/CER: SOM’, para. 18.

105 Ibid.

106 Wunderlich, ‘EU and ASEAN actorness’, p. 664.

107 Peter Davenport, ‘AFTA/CER: ACCSQ-CER meeting, Brunei 17/1/96’, Fax from Standards NZ to Graham Boxall (Ministry of Commerce), NZ archives file no. 101/14, 29 February 1996.

108 Ibid.

109 Acharya, Amitav, ‘Ideas, identity, and institution-building: From the “ASEAN Way” to the “Asia-Pacific Way”?’, The Pacific Review, 10:3 (1997), pp. 319–346 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

110 Robles, ‘The ASEAN Free Trade Area’, p. 92.

111 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism; Hettne, ‘Actorness’; Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’.

112 Camroux, David, ‘Interregionalism or merely a fourth-level game? An examination of the EU-ASEAN relationship’, East Asia, 27:1 (2010), pp. 57–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 David Taylor, telephone interview with author, Wellington, 7 October 2011.

114 Hänggi, Roloff, and Rüland (eds), Interregionalism and International Relations.

115 Recently: Adelmann, ‘Beyond aid and trade’; Hulse, ‘Actorness beyond the European Union’; Wunderlich, ‘EU and ASEAN actorness’.

116 Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism.

117 Baert, Francis, Scaramagli, Tiziana, and Söderbaum, Fredrik, ‘Conclusion’, in Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism, pp. 174–175 Google Scholar.

118 Acharya, ‘Regionalism beyond EU-centrism’, pp. 109–10.

119 Leslie, ‘Regionalism by diffusion and design’.

120 Baert, Scaramagli, and Söderbaum (eds), Intersecting Interregionalism; Doidge, ‘Joined at the hip; Doidge, The European Union and Interregionalism; Rüland, ‘Interregionalism’.