Contending regionalisms: hubs and challengers in the Americas and the Asia-Pacific

As regions become more institutionalized, they are characterized by two competing trends. First, key regional institutions can become hub institutions that act as transmitters of a comprehensive set of norms. Second, as regional institutions increase in number, regions themselves are liable to become more fragmented. How these trends have played out is explored in two key regions, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific. It is concluded that regions are not static entities but are ever-changing structural arrangements. Hub institutions can be challenged and the consequences can be significant as regions gain in importance on the international stage.     

Regional decoupling: the Asia-Pacific minus the USA?

This paper examines the interactions between the USA and the expanding ecosystem of East Asian and Asia-Pacific institutions. Concentrating on the period since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009, it analyzes the ‘rival regionalisms’ that are now mushrooming throughout the region. Critical is the competition between nominally cooperative institutions and continued state-to-state suspicions that handicap efforts to forge regional institutions able to redress the region's most contentious issues. Nonetheless, national mistrust of regional bodies is less evident in areas such as trade and finance where many actors envision the possibility of win-win solutions even as they remain more difficult to envision in issues touching on hard security The paper concludes by exploring what looks to be a new American disengagement from Asia-Pacific regional institutions as a consequence of the presidency of Donald Trump.