Social emergence in international relations

3 Emergence and Complexity in the International System: Developing a Social Ontology of International 4 Emergence and the Complexity of Social Practices: 5 The Case of Institutional

Maren Wagner

SOCIAL EMERGENCE IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Institutional Dynamics in East Asia

ISBN 978-3-319-33550-6 ISBN 978-3-319-33551-3 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33551-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016946225

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information

in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made Cover illustration: © Maria Kazanova / Alamy Stock Vector

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland

GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies

Hamburg , Germany

The idea for this book evolved out of my research interest in tional dynamics in East Asia—a region characterized by a fascinating and ever-growing meshwork of regional institutions, entities that contribute

institu-to integrative processes and that affect regional policies I have always wondered how such regional institutions emerge and acquire the distinct characteristics that give them their own unique nature Looking at existing scholarly works, I found these issues to be mostly unresolved and indeed contested in the fi eld of International Relations (IR) I thus felt the need

to reconsider the emergence of regional institutions in such a way as to incorporate into IR thinking the complex interplay between such emer-gent entities in the international system, and furthermore to clarify how emergence works and how we can potentially trace it

This book would not have been possible without the assistance and support of the various individuals and institutions that have facilitated and encouraged its creation First, I want to thank both the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies and the University of Hamburg for their fi nancial support, which not only allowed me to hone my research at several international workshops, conferences, and during a research stay in Singapore but also to fi nish this book Second, I want to specifi cally thank Dirk Nabers, University of Kiel, and Patrick Köllner, GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, for allowing me the space to develop my arguments and for always being open to my requests and thoughts At the GIGA, I also want to thank all those colleagues who commented on my research at its different stages, and who shared their perspectives on and discussed the various issues related to current developments in world politics

Many thanks especially to Nicola Nymalm and David Shim for reading parts of this work and for providing me with helpful feedback For his excellent proofreading I thank James Powell—any remaining mistakes are

my own

Third, I want to mention the kind hospitality of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS) and its staff in Singapore, who took me in as a visit-ing research fellow and thus provided me with a well-suited base for my research in the region I am also grateful to all those academics, diplomats, and other experts in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore who shared with

me their insights into institutional dynamics and developments in East Asia Furthermore, I want to acknowledge the useful observations pro-vided especially by Amitav Acharya, Patrick T. Jackson, Jonathan Joseph, Xia Liping, and Milja Kurki at the different stages of this work’s creation The most important encouragement to keep going with this work came, ultimately, from my own family: My parents continue to be proof

of what is most important in life, and their love and understanding have always been of great support to me My husband, Volker, is not only my greatest supporter, but also my greatest critic—thank you for your endur-ing faith in me and for always keeping my spirits up I dedicate this book

to them, and in particular to my father—he was always the most loveable and good-natured person in my life, and someone that I now miss every day

3 Emergence and Complexity in the International

System: Developing a Social Ontology of International

4 Emergence and the Complexity of Social Practices:

5 The Case of Institutional Emergence in East Asia:

Analyzing Regional Institutions as Emergent Entities 187

6 Examining the Role of Discourse in Institutional

Emergence in East Asia: ASEAN Plus Three and 

7 The Relevance of Social Emergence in World Politics:

AMRO ASEAN Plus Three Macroeconomic Research Offi ce

APEC Asia-Pacifi c Economic Cooperation

APT ASEAN Plus Three

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

ASEM Asia-Europe Meeting

CAQDAS Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software

CDA Critical Discourse Analysis

CEPEA Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia

CMI Chiang Mai Initiative

CMIM Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralization

EAEC East Asian Economic Caucus

EAS East Asia Summit

EASG East Asia Study Group

EAVG East Asia Vision Group

FTA(s) Free Trade Agreement(s)

IO International Organization

IR International Relations

MoEAI Ministry of External Affairs, India

MoFAJ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan

MoFAPRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China PMoI Prime Minister of India

TAC Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia

Table 6.3 Code co-occurrences: aims and challenges 223 Table 6.4 Code co-occurrences: scope and aims/challenges 237 Table 6.5 Code co-occurrences: ASEAN centrality 254

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

M Wagner, Social Emergence in International Relations,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33551-3_1

When we take a look at the institutional dynamics and transformations unfolding in East Asia 1 over the past 20  years, we can observe a great many changes occurring within the regional institutional landscape More and more novel institutional arrangements have emerged that are contrib-uting to integrative processes in the region and affecting regional poli-cies, thereby constituting the regional order In the academic discipline

of International Relations (IR), 2 the creation of regional institutions is commonly studied as being an integral part of regionalism in world poli-tics (e.g Fawcett and Hurrell 1995 ; Hurrell 1995 ) Herein, the regional architecture of East Asia is often used as a salient case for investigating the dynamic interplay of integrative processes (e.g Rozman 2012 ; Stubbs

2002 ; Terada 2012 ; Webber 2001 ) Besides the questions of why and how specifi c regional institutions are designed, another central research theme

is in what ways regional institutions matter and to what extent they have

an effect on regional and international relations

Regional institutions are designed by individual actors, while at the same time also having an effect on the latter’s actions and behavior Though institutions constrain their members to a certain extent, only individuals can change them and it is they who are ultimately responsible for the institution’s actions These circumstances provoke certain ques-tions relating to the ontological status of institutions: Do they have causal effects independent of their member states? Are they real entities? Or, are their members the only real entities? In my view, such ontological ques- The Issue of Institutional Emergence in East

Asia: An Introduction

tions about the nature of institutions need to be addressed fi rst, in order

to understand how we can even begin to study them

By drawing on critical realism (Bhaskar 1998 , 2008 )—a philosophy of science 3 that argues for a world existing independently of our concep-tions or knowledge about it—this work aims to reconsider the emergence

of regional institutions in the international system by introducing the concept of “emergence” (e.g Bedau and Humphreys 2008 ; Greve and Schnabel 2011 ) to IR theory 4 How we can best think of emergence in the international system remains an underexplored yet highly relevant theme

in IR. First, in terms of theory, it addresses the question of how we can most satisfactorily conceive of the ways in which forms of social order emerge out of underlying social structures and relations, but at the same time generate their own irreducible characteristics and abilities Second, as

to empirical work, it is important to study how emergence works in ticular settings and in what ways emergent entities within the international system have a causal impact on their individual parts’ actions and behavior From this perspective, emergence is signifi cant for understanding ontolog-ical questions in the social sciences (see Elder-Vass 2012 ) The concept is, therefore, “critical to the examination of the most fundamental questions

par-of the origin and behaviour par-of modern states” (Root 2013 , 32), and to the scrutiny of other entities of the international system such as institutions

In this book, I seek to introduce a conceptualization of social emergence

to IR theory, in order to rethink how novel structures or forms of order—such as regional institutions in East Asia—emerge in the international system, thereby developing their own causal effects Rather than focusing only on when and/or how particular regional institutions emerge, my main interest is instead to consider in what ways regional institutions can be understood and studied as emergent entities—and their creation as an emergent process in the international system This requires the following issues being addressed:

• First, identifying the novel or innovative properties of the emergent structure That is to say, the emergent properties that a regional insti-tution possesses but none of its parts possess need to be detected

• Second, the relationship between an institution and its parts In this regard, it is asked in what ways a regional institution depends on the interactions of its parts but is not reducible to the latter at the same time, so that it cannot be deduced from them alone This is con-nected to the question of whether a regional institution has some kind of downward causal effect on its parts

• Third, the underlying structures and mechanisms from which new forms of order emerge This means looking into how regional insti-tutions emerge from the interactions among and between states, and thus identifying the mechanisms of institutional emergence (while taking into account that both the process of emergence and the spe-cifi c form of an emergent institution cannot be foreseen)

Accordingly, the particular research problem that I am interested in here

is the nature of regional institutions and their emergence The focus of analysis is specifi cally on institutional dynamics, so that emphasis is put on process The critical realist approach advanced here conceives of the inter-national system as a stratifi ed and open one made up of emergent entities, and starts from a different point of view when studying regional institutions than most IR approaches do It builds on the assumption that the complex-ity of the international system repeatedly displays new forms of social struc-ture that arise from the continuous interactions of its components

These new structures demonstrate properties that the parts themselves do not possess Regional institutions, according to the main argument of this work, can be understood as such emergent entities of the international sys-tem, ones that arise out of underlying structures and relations but that are not simply reducible to any of their constituent parts I do not, then, aim to lay out specifi c factors or events that have led to the emergence of regional institutions, which means I do not intend to explain the individual causes of particular instances of institution building Rather, based on critical realist ontology, I aim to examine the particular underlying structures, relations, and processes that are at work in the emergence of regional institutions—and the latter’s emergent properties and powers, which are implicated in the process Besides offering a novel perspective on how to understand regional dynamics and institution building in East Asia, another aspiration of this work is to illustrate how emergence works in this particular regional set-ting For this purpose, it investigates in depth two regional institutions: Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Plus Three (APT) and the East Asia Summit (EAS) The East Asian case is a particularly inter-esting one due to the distinct dynamic of a mixture of diverse bi-, tri-, and multilateral groupings that partly overlap in their issues and tasks In this way, regionalism in East Asia is particularly pragmatic and fl exible Defi nitions of what constitutes the East Asian region are determined by the principle of “variable geometry” (Asian Development Bank 2008 ),

in that the structure of cooperation often adapts to the shifting priorities

of different groups and members As such, there are multiple tracks and speeds that mark the different parallel arrangements in the region Furthermore, integrative processes in East Asia are rather informal and inclusive as compared to other regions This shows up in the regional institutions’ distinctive designs, which are characterized by an “Asian way”

of institution building that emphasizes decisions based on deliberation and consensus (e.g Kahler 2013 ) A further characteristic of the regional-ism in East Asia is the central role that the ASEAN—rather than a single regional power—plays within related institution-building processes With Russia and the USA having become recent members of the EAS, a new dynamic in the regional integration process might now develop The growth of China and India into the main regional powers demonstrates the importance of East Asia for the world economy and politics ASEAN economies are growing steadily in a relative stable political environment Both institutional processes, APT and the EAS, illustrate the awareness of East Asian leaders of the need for further regional cooperation and inte-gration Besides, both groupings have served China by being a platform through which to attain greater political and economic infl uence in the region—something the USA is still concerned about (Chye 2012 , 121) With due regard to these current dynamics, institutional processes in East Asia are thus exceptionally open and often unpredictable For example, the creation of new institutional arrangements often occurs in response to external impetus—such as the establishment of APT after the Asian fi nan-cial crisis of 1997 Sometimes, institutional membership is expanded—as

in the case of the EAS’s aforementioned recent membership enlargement

to now also include the USA and Russia However it is also common to establish a new institutional forum so as to include an enlarged number of possible participants, as was the case with the EAS’s inception

While most IR studies concerned with institutional developments in East Asia focus on those incidents and events that we can tangibly observe, this work seeks to shed light on the mechanisms within such institutional dynamics that we cannot directly see but that still contribute to emer-gence What is also striking is that although most of the contemporary literature on East Asian regionalism commonly uses the term emergence

to describe the institutional dynamics in the region (e.g Stubbs 2002 ; Terada 2003 ), it is not further conceptualized or declared to be worthy of consideration in itself Some authors criticize, similarly, the fact that there are too few systematic studies explaining the emergence of and change in Asian regionalism (e.g Yu 2003 , 263)

Much the same applies to the institutionalist literature (e.g Hall and Taylor 1996 ; March and Olsen 1989 ), which aims to explain institutional changes and transformations but fails to adequately consider the process

of how institutions initially come into being (see Pierson 2000 ) In my view, conceptualizing emergence in the international system is a crucial step toward analyzing such processes and dynamics, and furthermore, it provides

an alternative perspective regarding how to best account for the ing nature of diverse forms of social order In this connection, it is crucial to highlight how I start from a different point of view when I examine regional institutions and their emergence than IR studies infl uenced by regionalism and institutionalism commonly do This does not mean, however, that the latter are simply disregarded, but that they (as discussed in the following two sections) serve rather as a starting point from which to develop a critical realist view on social emergence in the international system

ever-chang-1.1 REGIONALISM IN EAST ASIA: CHANGING

INSTITUTIONAL PATTERNS IN A COMPLEX REGION

In IR, the emergence of regional institutions has thus far been mainly sidered in the context of regionalism in world politics (e.g Fawcett and Hurrell 1995 ; Haas 1958 ; Hurrell 1995 ; Väyrynen 2003 ) Regionalism commonly implies “the deliberate act of forging a common platform, including new intergovernmental organizations and transnational civil society networks, to deal with common challenges, realize common objectives, and articulate and advance common identity” (Acharya 2010 , 1002) In this context, the evolution of regional cooperation in East Asia has been remarkable, coming especially in response to the Asian fi nancial crisis of 1997 Despite different theoretical approaches, a great many stud-ies have in common the interpretation of this crisis as an event that set new forms of regionalism in East Asia in motion

Various contributions have analyzed the crisis and its aftermath from

a political–economic perspective, in order to capture the interaction of the diverse factors that caused it—as well as to evaluate its implications (e.g Henderson 1999 ; Prakash 2001 ; Sharma 2003 ) Others have focused

on power shifts in the global order and the role played by China’s rise (Gill and Green 2009 ), some of them honing in specifi cally on recurring Sino–Japanese rivalry for leadership in the region (e.g Dent 2008 ; Nabers

2010 ) Yet others approach the issue from a constructivist angle, by ing to the development of a shared sense of identity and the emergence of

point-an East Asipoint-an region after the crisis (e.g Harris 2000 ; Higgott and Stubbs

In response to pressing economic needs and challenges, as well as the failure of already existing regional institutions such as ASEAN or the Asia- Pacifi c Economic Cooperation (APEC) to effectively tackle the situation, ASEAN fi nance ministers met with counterparts from China, Japan, and South Korea in 1997 for the fi rst time With a joint statement made in

1999, the “10 + 3” countries established out of these meetings the fi rst exclusively East Asian cooperative framework, known as APT.  The idea

of such an East Asian grouping had already been put forward in 1990 by the then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, in the form of an East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) This was an alternative vision to regional cooperation that proposed to exclude the Pacifi c powers and only consist

of the ASEAN countries plus China, Japan, and South Korea 5

Since its inception, APT showed in this spirit several successful East Asian solutions to East Asian problems—most notably a network of bilateral swap arrangements under the Chiang Mai Initiative (CMI) in

2000, followed by its later multilateralization (CMIM) in 2010 Scholars acknowledge in this regard that the “APT process has developed an orga-nizational momentum that few would have predicted at the fi rst informal summit in late 1997” (Stubbs 2002 , 450), and further postulate that “it looks as if the institutionalisation of the region [has] gained ground to an extent that is irreversible for the foreseeable future” (Nabers 2010 , 949)

The Asian fi nancial crisis has incontrovertibly been a major external tus for institutional change in East Asia Since that time, three major driv-ing forces have continued to change the arrangements in the region: “the level of American participation, the nature of China’s involvement, and the strength of regionalism in Southeast Asia” (Emmers and Tan 2012 , 194)

impe-In respect thereof, Asian multilateralism refl ects the history and traits of the region, which have always been crucial for the development of cooperation

on a regional level (Harris 2000 ) A certain kind of regional “togetherness” and a common sense of identity are in this connection important com-ponents in promoting regional cooperation and integration in East Asia Competing visions of regional order and corresponding concepts of East Asia have been an ongoing point of struggle in the region since the end

of the Cold War, given the necessity that there should be at least a loose consensus among members on the region’s makeup and its associated insti-tutional arrangements (see Higgott and Stubbs 1995 ; Terada 2003 ) While there is a mutual desire for Asian-led institutions, developments on the ground have revealed “a far more dynamic, ongoing, and uncertain debate about architecture in the region” (Gill and Green 2009 , 12) Herein, ideas

as to what community building should actually look like as well as concrete forms and functions of integration continue to be contested

This also showed up in APT’s attempts to deepen regional integration

in the form of community building, which resulted in the establishment

of yet another regional institution: the EAS.  With its broader ship—including the Asia-Pacifi c region as represented by Australia, India, and New Zealand, in addition to APT members—the EAS exemplifi es the ongoing struggle about the ideal organization of the regional architec-ture This is not to mention the EAS’s recent membership enlargement to include the USA and Russia, which was offi cially confi rmed in 2010 with the fi rst extended format meeting taking place in 2011

This aside, despite the general success of regional economic integration, East Asian security cooperation has shaped up to be much more diffi cult to achieve Though the Six-Party Talks held in 2003 over how to deal with the challenge of a North Korea in possession of nuclear weapons displayed a sense

of collective responsibility, no consensus could be found afterward on how

to manage this threat—resulting in talks breaking down after 2008 In 2010, China declared the South China Sea to be a core interest and expanded its military power accordingly This situation turned out to be another turning point in regional cooperation, putting US involvement back on the priority list and thereby “raising the likelihood that an inclusive form of regionalism would take precedence over any exclusive type” (Rozman 2012 , 24)

What is noticeable is how many authors make use of the term gence in explaining regionalism in East Asia They ask, for instance, if APT stands for “emerging East Asian regionalism” (Stubbs 2002 , 440),

emer-or talk about “the emergence and acclimation of the concept of East Asia” and “the emergence of a sense of identity” (Terada 2003 , 253) among East Asian countries While these examples aptly describe the institutional dynamics in the region, it is striking that no further attention is paid to the term emergence nor is it conceptualized in any way There are, as such, not enough systematic studies out there at present that analyze and explain the emergence of and changes in Asian regionalism (see Yu 2003 ) What is more, although a large number of studies refer to the creation of regional order or discuss competing visions thereof (e.g in the form of different regional institutions), they barely account for the formation of the innovative structures associated with it Thus, regional institutions are mainly treated as mere epiphenomena of regional integration processes Questions regarding why and how regional institutions emerge, or how they affect regional architecture, are further addressed in IR theory only

by different versions of institutionalism

1.2 INSTITUTIONALISMS AND THEIR SHORTCOMINGS:

CHALLENGING EPIPHENOMENAL VIEWS

Studies of regionalism in IR commonly include a focus on institutional research By reviewing the different theoretical perspectives on Asia’s IR, Acharya ( 2008 , 61) sets out the varying ideas about the role and impact

of regional institutions While, according to classical (IR) realism, tions are adjuncts to the balance of power, neorealists hold East Asian regional institutions to be instruments of China’s sphere of infl uence Concerned with growing interdependence, both liberalism and neolib-eralism perceive economic and security regimes to be a means by which

institu-to promote free trade and manage any possible disputes Constructivist approaches emphasize the norm-setting and community-building func-tions of regional institutions, which evolve from already established pat-terns of dialogue and informal institutions

In IR, one major focus of institutional research was fi rst established in the mid-1970s with the scrutiny of international regimes (see Keohane and Nye 1977 ; Krasner 1982 ) This research strand is usually associated with “institutionalism” in IR (Peters 2005 , 142) The common and often- quoted defi nition of international regimes articulated by Krasner ( 1982 ,

185)—“principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actor expectations converge in a given issue-area”—aimed to achieve balance between different research traditions, and consequently is relatively open to interpretation Following their different schools, several diverse theoretical approaches found their way into the debate All had

as their aim the study of international institutions, which stimulated an ongoing methodological debate

Keohane, who stressed that “[i]nstitutions do not merely refl ect the preferences and power of the units constituting them; the institu-tions themselves shape those preferences and that power” ( 1988 , 382), compared two of these different approaches as rationalist and refl ective theories This form of differentiation shows similarities to three broader prominent strands of the so-called new institutionalisms: rational-choice, historical, and sociological institutionalism (see Hall and Taylor 1996 ; Immergut 1998 ) These versions of new institutionalist thinking have pri-marily been applied in political science But, inasmuch as a lot of the logics behind approaches to international relations are compatible with these institutional approaches in political science (Peters 2005 , 140), the latter also found their way into the IR discipline

Rational-choice institutionalism is based on a set of behavioral tions: States, as the main actors of international relations, have a fi xed set

assump-of preferences and behave in a rational way, according to their self-interest,

in order to maximize gains Institutions arise out of states’ strategic actions that result from their interdependence and collective action dilem-mas (Hall and Taylor 1996 ) The main function of institutions is thus to reduce transaction costs In IR, the notion of transaction costs has mainly been spread by Keohane’s ( 1984 ) functional theory of international regimes However, as Keohane argues himself, rationalist approaches to institutions “[fail] to account for the creation or demise of such institu-tions” ( 1988 , 387) If anything, being restricted only to a situation of strategic interaction and thus a very limited number of possible settings means that a “rational choice version of change is good at identifying why conscious change may occur in a world of stable preferences and insti-tutional failures” (Peters 2005 , 62) Relying on punctuated equilibrium models, transformations can only have exogenous origins

In contrast to this “calculus approach,” historical and sociological institutionalists consider the question of how institutions evolve—therein allowing for the possibility of changing preferences Historical institu-tionalism (e.g Fioretos 2011 ; Pierson 2004 ; Thelen 1999 ) focuses on

the timing and sequences of the historical processes in which institutions emerge and are embedded, primarily by highlighting path dependency but also by accounting for any unintended consequences Proceeding on the assumption of institutional persistence, enduring pathways are seen as being cyclically punctuated by instances of abrupt institutional change in the form of critical junctures The latter are generated by the exogenous factors—commonly, crises within society or in the international system (e.g revolutions, wars, or economic crises)—that provide moments in which particular constraints might be eased, and thus also the opportunity for institutional innovation (Capoccia and Kelemen 2007 ) Another argu-ment emphasized is that behavior is not only strategic but also infl uenced

by the worldviews and familiar patterns or ideas that individuals establish (Hall and Taylor 1996 ) In this way, the historical strand pays specifi c attention to the particular situation and context of institutional processes and their respective interpretations

In a similar vein, the sociological perspective focuses on the processes

of creating and reproducing successful institutions—but it emphasizes the specifi c role of values and norms therein Institutions are defi ned more broadly, also encompassing—alongside formal rules and procedures—particular systems of symbolism and meaning that guide human behavior (Peters 2005 , 111) Sociological approaches thus “emphasize the highly interactive and mutually constitutive character of the relationship between institutions and individual action” (Hall and Taylor 1996 , 948) In IR, this understanding is commonly used in constructivist approaches In their analysis of government institutions, March and Olsen ( 1989 ) highlight the role of the symbols and values that determine both a particular institu-tion itself as well as its members’ behavior DiMaggio and Powell ( 1983 ) ask why relatively similar institutions arise in varied political and social set-tings (known as the question of “isomorphism”)

There are several shortcomings to IR approaches that rely on tutionalisms, specifi cally when it comes to questions regarding institu-tional change and the origin of institutions These can be summarized as follows: First, although historical and sociological approaches pay more attention to institutional processes over time than the rational-choice lit-erature does, the former tend to stress continuity over change just as much (Mahoney and Thelen 2010b ; Streeck and Thelen 2005a ) By distinguish-ing between shocks or critical junctures on the one hand and long periods

insti-of stasis characterized by continuity on the other, they rely on exogenous sources of change This leads to the conceptualization of institutions as

relatively persistent and enduring features of political life, thus overlooking the possibility of endogenous institutional change and evolutionary devel-opments unfolding in an incremental manner (see Mahoney and Thelen

2010a ; Streeck and Thelen 2005b ) As illustrated in the previous section,

a great many of the studies on Asian regionalism follow this understanding

by interpreting the Asian fi nancial crisis as an exogenous shock, as a trigger

or a critical juncture that fi rst set the subsequent transformations in East Asian regional architecture in motion (Beeson 2002 )

Second, the process of how institutions come into being is not sidered adequately or indeed even addressed at all, so that “the origins

con-of institutions, as well as the sources con-of institutional change, remain quite opaque” (Pierson 2000 , 475) This is related to the core problem that the structure or design of institutions is predominantly defi ned in terms

of what they do instead of their composition, which means rather in tional terms than in those of their own nature For example, IR realists assume that institutions are created by powerful actors within the inter-national system simply to serve their own interests—thus constituting just another arena for the playing out of power politics as instruments or tools

func-of the state rather than func-of actors in their own right (Krasner 1978 ; Krasner

1991 ) Accordingly, institutions are epiphenomenal to state power and interests and cannot independently constrain or infl uence state behav-ior (Stein 2010 ) Neoliberal institutionalists argue that institutions are formed in order to resolve collective action problems, thereby facilitat-ing cooperation through the reduction of transaction costs and provision

of information (e.g Keohane 1984 ; Snidal 1985 ) But they also regard institutions as the self-interested creations of states—in that the design is closely related to the nature of the problem requiring resolution in the fi rst place (Stein 2010 , 213) Institutional design is understood as a function of the distribution of power between the actors of the international system, and of related problems and uncertainties

Third, these shortcomings are based upon ontological problems that many regionalist or institutionalist IR studies have in common: They not only lack a clear defi nition of the relationship between structure and agency, but beyond that also neglect the emergent ontology of institu-tions or organizations in international relations For example, Barnett and Finnemore’s ( 1999 ) constructivist approach to the explanation of inter-national organizations (IOs) that draws on Weberian arguments about bureaucracy indeed ascribes independence to IOs However, although their considerations are akin to emergentist thinking, they fail to clarify

both the relationships between the IOs that “can be autonomous and powerful actors in global politics” ( 1999 , 700) and the interactions of their constituent parts As the critical realist approach presented here argues, such shortcomings are connected to a general disregard for onto-logical and methodological concerns; these are, however, crucial to study-ing regional institutions in terms of their own nature

1.3 INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT OF EMERGENCE

TO THE STUDY OF WORLD POLITICS: IMPLICATIONS

FOR STUDYING REGIONAL INSTITUTIONS

The critical realist approach to institutional dynamics in East Asia advanced here seeks to provide a conceptualization of social emergence in the inter-national system so as to study regional institutions and their emergence from a truly novel perspective Introducing the concept of emergence to

IR theory contributes to refl ections on what regional institutions actually are, in other words, to tackling the crucial question of “whether they have

an ontological status apart from the activity of those producing them” (Trigg 1985 , 50) This includes thinking about the relationship between

a collective and its individuals: Emergence implies that despite social nomena being created by the collective actions of individuals, they are not merely reducible to those actions (e.g Archer 1995 ; Bhaskar 1998 ) The controversy surrounding emergence is actually based on this very hallmark,

phe-“for viewing macro phenomena as both dependent on and autonomous from their micro bases seems metaphysically problematic: inconsistent or illegitimate or unacceptably mysterious” (Bedau 2008 , 156) This book advances the debate by offering up a strong form of emergence that is based on critical realist ontology, and that stresses causal emergence and the relational organization of emergent phenomena

By introducing this form of emergence to the study of world politics, I expect to gain new insights into the changing patterns of East Asian insti-tutional processes More generally, I will also specify how forms of social order emerge out of underlying relations—while at the same time devel-oping their own irreducible characteristics In this respect, the approach developed here also seeks to enhance the application of the concept of emergence in IR and thereby shows the benefi ts of studying the interna-tional system as a complex system of emergent entities

With regard to the aforementioned shortcomings of traditional IR approaches, a critical realist approach allows, fi rst, for endogenously

generated transformations and forms of incremental change Critical ists emphasize that social structures cannot be regarded as fi xed, but should rather be seen as continuous processes of reproduction and/or transfor-mation Lawson, for instance, argues that “social items…must be under-stood as processes, as reproduced structures of interaction, with change recognized not as (or not only as) an external happening, the result of an external or exogenous shock, but as an integral part of what the system or object in question is” ( 1997 , 171) Given that the idea of an exclusively East Asian grouping had already been formulated prior to the outbreak

real-of the Asian fi nancial crisis in the terms set down in Mahathir’s EAEC proposal, it is reasonable to not only consider that crisis as an external trigger but also to account for the endogenous processes and incremental developments that shaped the regional architecture in this specifi c context (see Streeck and Thelen 2005b )

The approach advanced here points to the subtle but signifi cant ference between change and emergence (see Lichtenstein 2014 ) Institutional changes or transformations occur through signifi cant exter-nal shifts or incremental adaptions, which means they modify certain ele-ments of existing structure or design in order to work more effectively

dif-As in the case of dif-Asian regionalism, the trigger for such modifi cations is often described in terms of crises Emergence, on the contrary, is not sim-ply another way to characterize such changes or transformations It refers rather to the process of inventing something new, meaning the creation

of a distinct regional institution and the structures associated with it The emergence of APT as the fi rst exclusively East Asian institution symbolizes such innovation in regional architecture The trigger for it is thus linked

to particular visions of and aspirations to a novel regional order From this

it follows that regional institutions can be understood as arising from vidual interactions between states that are aimed at fulfi lling a common purpose or that are associated with a shared vision

For the second identifi ed shortcoming, then, a critical realist approach understands reality as a stratifi ed and open system of emergent entities and accounts for new, irreducible properties and mechanisms therein This means that, instead of adhering to a functionalist perspective, the structure

or design of a regional institution can be defi ned rather in terms of its own nature Consequently, the process by which regional institutions come into being can be understood as regards their unique emergent proper-ties and powers, which I aim to identify in this book Alongside the core purposes or goals of a regional institution that characterize it as a whole, I

argue that it is mainly due to its unique relational organization that it can

be regarded as an emergent entity Institutional design is in this way mulated from an emergentist perspective that accounts for the interplay of intentional interactions and unintended consequences

In this regard, this work also reconsiders the refl ective capacities of social actors and their ways of interacting that are unique to forms of emergence in the social world Although some authors in the emergence debate do refer to the centrality of language and communication in social interaction (e.g Goldspink and Kay 2007 ; Sawyer 2005 ), the distinct role

of discourse has not been adequately considered yet The critical realist approach developed here specifi es the ways of acting and interacting in the international system in terms of social practices, and pays particular attention to discourse by conceptualizing it as a core mechanism at work

in social emergence In so doing, it contributes not only to the emergence debate in the social sciences but also to a causal reading of discourse in IR research as well (e.g Banta 2012 )

Considering the third shortcoming that IR studies based on ism or institutionalism share, a critical realist approach benefi ts from its emergent ontology It provides a means by which to theorize the complex underlying structures and relations that bring about new forms of social order, and furthermore acknowledges the irreducibility of the latter’s emergent properties and powers In this connection, it promotes a clear defi nition of the relationship between structure and agency According

regional-to critical realists, “social structures, once produced, can endure and thus

be clearly distinct from and not just instantiated by the agents which may encounter or inhabit them” (Rivas 2010 , 219)

While social structures are thus irreducible to agents and their behavior, they do not exist independently of those agents’ conceptions of what they are doing and of the social actions that they govern—they can, in fact, be reproduced or transformed by the latter They are real, however, and can thus be understood as an emergent level of reality (see Jessop 2005 ; Kurki

2008 ) In this regard, “emergence means that although the more complex levels of reality, for example, societies, presuppose the more basic or less complex levels, for example, people, explanations of them are not reduc-ible to the other” (Wight 2006 , 37) Such ontological issues are key to understanding the emergence of regional institutions in the international system, and should be addressed in advance of dealing with epistemologi-cal questions as to how we can best study them

In the course of developing the critical realist approach running through this book, I also aim to refi ne some of the critical realist arguments to further

advance such research in IR and the social sciences One main concern is that, since critical realism is preoccupied with the reproduction and trans-formation of social relations, it needs to be more involved with the role of language and the production of meaning (Fairclough et al 2004 ) I see here

a clear assignment for critical realism, for it to engage with discourse and introduce a critical discourse analysis (CDA) so as to study the latter as a core mechanism at work in the emergence of regional institutions in East Asia

My ambitions in this book are twofold: The predominant one is to introduce the concept of emergence as a novel perspective by which to understand and study regional institutions On these grounds, the critical realist approach advanced here is essentially philosophical and theoretical in nature Theory is regarded as guiding research instead of being subordinate

to particular methods or ways of conducting it In this regard, the approach

is furthermore developed in an interdisciplinary manner, as it necessarily draws on literature from outside IR.  It brings distinct, but still compat-ible, theoretical frameworks into dialogue with each other so as to build a comprehensive and multilayered reconceptualization of the emergence of regional institutions in East Asia Alongside IR literature, this study thus draws on insights also from Emergentism, Complexity Theory, Sociology, Organization and Management Studies, and Critical Discourse Studies

An additional aspiration of the book is to analyze social emergence using the concrete example of regional institutions in East Asia via APT and the EAS. I acknowledge that there is already a distinguished literature

on the philosophy of science and its implications for research in IR (e.g Jackson 2011 ; Kurki 2008 ; Wight 2002 ), as well as noteworthy attempts

to develop guidelines for distinct critical realist research (e.g Carter and New 2004 ; Danermark et  al 2002 ; Edwards et  al 2014 ), but too few attempts to incorporate empirical cases as a way to illustrate both have been made to date Explicitly this means that while studies focusing on methodological consequences rarely demonstrate their applicability to concrete empirical work, studies looking at specifi c cases often lack overt ontological underpinnings

With this in mind, I am aiming with this book to fi ll this gap by ing consideration to three interrelated components within the research process: First, engaging in a philosophical refl ection on key concepts rel-evant to this work by building upon critical realist emergent ontology

giv-so as to investigate the concept of emergence (Chaps 2 and 3 ) Second, this critical realist approach consequently supports the theorizing of social emergence in the international system throughout the research process,

by paying close attention to the associated methodological implications

thereof (Chaps 3 and 4 ) Third and fi nally, it applies the developed approach to a concrete empirical case—that of institutional emergence in East Asia (Chaps 5 and 6 )

1.4 A GUIDE TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK

The critical realist approach to institutional dynamics in East Asia advanced here proceeds in two parts, ones whose structure follows the explanatory logic of critical realism (see Danermark et al 2002 , 109–111) This iden-tifi es the research process as a pathway from the concrete to the abstract and back again to the concrete Part I seeks to develop a conceptualiza-tion of social emergence in the international system using the example of regional institutions in East Asia Chapter 1 , here, started in the concrete

by describing the complex phenomenon of the emergence of regional institutions in East Asia, thus being the research interest of this book Chapter 2 introduces critical realism as a philosophy of science and the metatheoretical basis of this book, specifi cally by illustrating key concepts and its methodological implications for the social sciences and the study

of world politics Based on the critical realist emergent ontology, I argue here that regional institutions can be understood as emergent entities of the international system that arise out of their underlying relations and mechanisms, but are not simply reducible to any of their parts

As it is impossible to analyze the emergence of regional institutions in East Asia in all its complexity, Chaps 3 and 4 perform the task of relating the concrete to the abstract This means that, through analytical resolu-tion, the components most relevant to this work are specifi ed and then described anew In Chap 3 , I develop a social ontology of international relations that identifi es the main entities, parts, and relations that consti-tute the international system, specifi cally by looking at theory as an inter-disciplinary enterprise In this manner, I redescribe regional institutions as forms of self-organization by states to achieve certain emergent properties and powers By means of retroduction, such properties and powers that are unique to regional institutions are identifi ed I distinguish between two groups of such properties, so as to uphold the difference between a regional institution as a whole and its particular relational organization: purposive emergent properties that are directed toward the achievement of common goals or objectives, and the organizational emergent properties that refer

to institutional organization and operations in terms of institutional design

As the comparison between different theories and abstractions in this chapter also shows, emergence in social systems differs from emergence

in natural systems in considerable ways On these grounds, Chap 4 takes the refl ective capacities of social actors and their forms of interaction into account This it does by examining the relevance of language, as a central form of social interaction, and accordingly the particular role of discourse

in forms of social emergence As one element of social practice, I defi ne course as a core mechanism that—in connection with other (non- discursive) ones—is at work in social emergence Given that discourse relates to the broader context in which it is situated, I thus introduce CDA as a possible method with which to study discourse as a mechanism of emergence Then,

dis-a fi ndis-alized conceptudis-alizdis-ation of socidis-al emergence in the interndis-ationdis-al system using the example of regional institutions is presented

Part II seeks to move from the abstract back to the concrete by exploring the emergence of regional institutions in East Asia on the basis of APT and the EAS. For this purpose, in Chaps 5 and 6 , I concretize and contextual-ize how discourse manifests itself in institutional emergence—that is, how it

fi gures in the regional institution’s purposive and organizational emergent properties as well as how it (re)produces power relations by means of a critical realist-informed CDA. Chapter 5 provides information on the cases, the analytical framework, and the research process Chapter 6 then pres-ents and discusses the fi ndings of the analysis according to the three main research interests—purposive emergent properties, organizational emergent properties, and institutional relations—and three corresponding nodal dis-courses—community building, openness, and complementarity In Chap

7 , I examine the implications of rethinking regional institutions as gent for the study of world politics, specifi cally by summarizing and critically evaluating the main arguments and fi ndings of the book

emer-1.5 NOTES

1 In this book, the notion of “East Asia” refers to the area encompassing Southeast and Northeast Asia The former thus includes the member states of the ASEAN—namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—and the latter includes China, Japan, and South Korea

2 In following convention, for the academic discipline of International Relations, capital letters are used and for international relations as the object of study of this discipline lower case ones are used I also use the term “world politics” to describe the latter

3 Critical realism provides the metatheoretical framework for this work (see Chap 2) To clarify this at the outset, the term “realism” has entirely different meanings

in the philosophy of science and in IR. If I refer to realism without any further qualifi cation, the term is being used in the philosophical sense; if used in the IR sense, there will be a corresponding specifi cation attached (e.g “(IR) realism”)

4 The ideas underpinning this work were fi rst formulated in papers presented in the context of the ISA 53rd Annual Convention (Hoepfner 2012a ) and the 2nd Joint International BISA-ISA conference (Hoepfner 2012b )

5 Prior to this, East Asian countries had only been involved in such frameworks under a broader Asia-Pacifi c conceptualization of the region The EAEC pro- posal was signifi cant in that it was the fi rst articulation of an exclusively East Asian grouping, and prefi gured the ongoing debate about inclusion and exclu- sion in the region Although there were strong objections by the USA to the proposal and concerns by Asian nations (e.g Japan) about jeopardizing its ties and relationship with the superpower, ASEAN leaders generally saw value in the idea and continued working on it in informal meetings (see also, Beeson

2009 ; Emmers et al 2010 ; Terada 2003 )

REFERENCES

Acharya, Amitav 1999 Realism, Institutionalism, and the Asian Economic Crisis

Contemporary Southeast Asia 21(1): 1–29

——— 2008 Theoretical Perspectives on International Relations in Asia In

International Relations of Asia , eds David Shambaugh and Michael Yahuda,

57–82 Lanham: Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishers

——— 2010 Asia Is Not One Journal of Asian Studies 69(4): 1001–1013

Archer, Margaret 1995 Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Asian Development Bank 2008 Emerging Asian Regionalism: A Partnership for Shared Prosperity Mandaluyong City: Asian Development Bank http://aric adb.org/emergingasianregionalism/index.php

Banta, Benjamin 2012 Analysing Discoures as a Causal Mechanism European Journal of International Relations 19(2): 379–402

Barnett, Michael N., and Martha Finnemore 1999 The Politics, Power, and

Pathologies of International Organizations International Organization 53(4):

699–732 doi: 10.1162/002081899551048

Bedau, Mark A 2008 Downward Causation and Autonomy in Weak Emergence

In Emergence , eds Mark A. Bedau and Paul Humphreys, 155–188 Cambridge:

——— 2009 Institutions of the Asia-Pacifi c London: Routledge

Bhaskar, Roy 1998 The Possibility of Naturalism A Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences , 3rd edn London: Routledge

——— 2008 A Realist Theory of Science , 3rd edn London: Verso

Capoccia, Giovanni, and R. Daniel Kelemen 2007 The Study of Critical Junctures:

Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism World Politics 59(3): 341–369 doi: 10.1017/S0043887100020852

Carter, Bob, and Caroline New 2004 Making Realism Work: Realist Social Theory and Empirical Research London: Routledge

Chye, Tan Seng 2012 Changing Global Landscape and Enhanced US Engagement

with Asia—Challenges and Emerging Trends Asia-Pacifi c Review 19(1): 108–

129 doi: 10.1080/13439006.2012.678630

Danermark, Berth, Mats Ekström, Liselotte Jakobsen, and Jan Ch Karlsson, eds

2002 Explaining Society: Critical Realism in the Social Sciences London: Routledge Dent, Christopher M 2008 China, Japan and Regional Leadership in East Asia

Northampton: Edward Elgar

DiMaggio, Paul J., and Walter W. Powell 1983 The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields American Sociological Review 48(2): 147 doi: 10.2307/2095101

Edwards, Paul K., Joe O’Mahoney, and Steve Vincent, eds 2014 Studying Organizations Using Critical Realism: A Practical Guide Oxford: Oxford

University Press

Elder-Vass, Dave 2012 Top-Down Causation and Social Structures Interface Focus 2(1): 82–90 doi: 10.1098/rsfs.2011.0055

Emmers, Ralf, and See Seng Tan 2012 Conclusion Trends and Driving Forces in

East Asian Regionalism In ASEAN and the Institutionalization of East Asia ,

ed Ralf Emmers, 192–196 London: Routledge

Emmers, Ralf, Joseph Chinyong Liow, and See Seng Tan 2010 The East Asian

Summit and the Regional Security Architecture Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies 3(202)

Fairclough, Norman, Bob Jessop, and Andrew Sayer 2004 Critical Realism and

Semiosis In Realism, Discourse and Deconstruction , eds Jonathan Joseph and

John Michael Roberts, 23–42 London: Routledge

Fawcett, Louise, and Andrew Hurrell, eds 1995 Regionalism in World Politics Regional Organization and International Order New York: Oxford University

Press

Fioretos, Orfeo 2011 Historical Institutionalism in International Relations

International Organization 65(2): 367–399 doi: 10.1017/S0020818311000002 Gill, Bates, and Michael J. Green, eds 2009 Unbundling Asia’s New Multilateralism

Asia’s New Multilateralism , 1–29 New York: Columbia University Press

Goldspink, Christopher, and Robert Kay 2007 Social Emergence: Distinguishing Refl exive and Non-Refl exive Modes Paper Presented at the AAAI Fall Symposium , 48–55 Washington

Greve, Jens, and Annette Schnabel, eds 2011 Emergenz Zur Analyse Und Erklärung Komplexer Strukturen Berlin: Suhrkamp

Haas, Ernst B 1958 The Challenge of Regionalism International Organization

12(4): 440–458 doi: 10.1017/S0020818300031349

Hall, Peter A., and Rosemary C.R. Taylor 1996 Political Science and the Three New

Institutionalisms Political Studies 44(5): 936–957 doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1996 tb00343.x

Harris, Stuart 2000 Asian Multilateral Institutions and Their Response to the Asian Economic Crisis: The Regional and Global Implications The Pacifi c Review 13(3): 495–516

Henderson, Jeffrey 1999 Uneven Crises: Institutional Foundations of East Asian

Economic Turmoil Economy and Society 28(3): 327–368

Higgott, Richard, and Richard Stubbs 1995 Competing Conceptions of

Economic Regionalism: APEC versus EAEC in the Asia Pacifi c Review of International Political Economy 2(3): 516–535

Hoepfner, Maren 2012a Institutional Emergence in East Asia—A Critical Realist

Approach to Semiosis and Institutional Emergence In Paper Presented at the ISA 53rd Annual Convention San Diego

——— 2012b The Concept of an East Asian Region: Thinking of Emergence in World Politics Paper Presented at the 2nd Joint International BISA-ISA Conference Edinburgh

Hurrell, Andrew 1995 Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World

Politics Review of International Studies 21(4): 331–358

Immergut, Ellen M 1998 The Theoretical Core of the New Institutionalism

Politics & Society 26(1): 5–34 doi: 10.1177/0032329298026001002

Jackson, Patrick Thaddeus 2011 The Conduct of Inquiry in International

Relations In The New International Relations London: Routledge

Jessop, Bob 2005 Critical Realims and the Strategic-Relational Approach New Formations 56: 40–53

Kahler, Miles 2013 Regional Institutions in an Era of Globalization and Crisis In

Integrating Regions , eds Miles Kahler and Andrew MacIntyre, 3–29 Stanford:

Stanford University Press

Keohane, Robert O 1984 After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy Princeton: Princeton University Press

——— 1988 International Institutions: Two Approaches International Studies Quarterly 32(4): 379 doi: 10.2307/2600589

Keohane, Robert O., and Joseph S. Nye 1977 Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition Boston: Little, Brown and Co

Krasner, Stephen D 1978 Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and U.S. Foreign Policy Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

——— 1982 Structural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as

Intervening Variables International Organization 36(2): 185–205

——— 1991 Global Communications and National Power: Life on the Pareto

Frontier World Politics 43(3): 336–366 doi: 10.2307/2010398

Kurki, Milja 2008 Causation in International Relations Cambridge: Cambridge

Univ Press

Lawson, Tony 1997 Economics and Reality London: Routledge

Lichtenstein, Benyamin B 2014 Generative Emergence: A New Discipline of Organizational, Entrepreneurial, and Social Innovation Oxford: Oxford

University Press

Mahoney, James, and Kathleen Thelen, eds 2010a A Theory of Gradual Institutional Change Explaining Institutional Change , 1–37 Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

———, eds 2010b Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

March, James G., and Johan P.  Olsen 1989 Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics New York: Free Press

Nabers, Dirk 2010 Power, Leadership, and Hegemony in International Politics:

The Case of East Asia Review of International Studies 36: 931–949

Peters, B.  Guy 2005 Institutional Theory in Political Science: The New Institutionalism , 2nd edn London: Continuum

Pierson, Paul 2000 The Limits of Design: Explaining Institutional Origins and

Change Governance 13(4): 475–499 doi: 10.1111/0952-1895.00142

——— 2004 Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis Princeton:

Princeton University Press

Prakash, Aseem 2001 The East Asian Crisis and the Globalization Discourse

Review of International Political Economy 8(1): 119–146

Rivas, Jorge 2010 Realism For Real This Time: Scientifi c Realism Is Not a

Compromise Between Positivism and Interpretivism In Scientifi c Realism and International Relations , eds Jonathan Joseph and Colin Wight, 203–227

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Root, Hilton L 2013 Dynamics Among Nations: The Evolution of Legitimacy and Development in Modern States Cambridge: MIT Press

Rozman, Gilbert 2012 East Asian Regionalism In Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism , eds Mark Beeson and Richard Stubbs, 22–32 London:

Snidal, Duncan 1985 Coordination versus Prisoners’ Dilemma: Implications for

International Cooperation and Regimes The American Political Science Review

79(4): 923 doi: 10.2307/1956241

Stein, Arthur A 2010 Neoliberal Institutionalism In The Oxford Handbook of International Relations , eds Christian Reus-Smit and Duncan Snidal, 201–

221 Oxford: Oxford University Press

Streeck, Wolfgang, and Kathleen Thelen, eds 2005a Beyond Continuity Oxford:

Oxford University Press

———, eds 2005b Introduction In Beyond Continuity , 1–39 Oxford: Oxford

——— 2012 ASEAN Plus Three: Becoming More like a Normal Regionalism?

In Routledge Handbook of Asian Regionalism , eds Mark Beeson and Richard

Stubbs, 364–374 London: Routledge

Thelen, Kathleen 1999 Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics

Annual Review of Political Science 2(1): 369–404 doi: 10.1146/annurev polisci.2.1.369

Trigg, Roger 1985 Understanding Social Science : A Philosophical Introduction to the Social Sciences Oxford: Basil Blackwell

Väyrynen, Raimo 2003 Regionalism: Old and New International Studies Review

5(1): 25–51 doi: 10.1111/1521-9488.501002

Webber, Douglas 2001 Two Funerals and a Wedding? The Ups and Downs of

Regionalism in East Asia and Asia-Pacifi c after the Asian Crisis The Pacifi c Review 14(3): 339–372

Wight, Colin 2002 Philosophy of Social Science and International Relations In

Handbook of International Relations , eds Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and

Beth A. Simmons, 23–51 London: SAGE Publications

——— 2006 Agents, Structures and International Relations Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press

Yu, Hyun-Seok 2003 Explaining the Emergence of New East Asian Regionalism

Asian Perspectives 27(1): 261–288

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

M Wagner, Social Emergence in International Relations,

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33551-3_2

The creation of regional institutions has hitherto been characterized and studied as a crucial part of regionalism in world politics (e.g Fawcett and Hurrell 1995 ; Hurrell 1995 ) As one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse regions, East Asia represents a salient case of the interplay

of various such integrative processes (see Rozman 2012 ; Terada 2012 ) Consequently, questions have been generated about whether East Asian regional institutions matter (and if so, in what sense), if they have any impact on international relations in the region and beyond, and to what extent they are effective (or not)

These issues actually concern a related, underlying question: namely, whether regional institutions have causal effects independent of their member states Although regional institutions are constituted by individ-ual actors, they act to some degree upon the latter’s actions and behavior

At the same time, it is also always individuals who are responsible for how institutions act and what it is that they do How can institutions, then, simultaneously constrain their members? Further, how is it possible that actors can modify institutions while at the same time being conditioned

by them? Can institutions in fact be said to be real entities, or are only the individuals that constitute them real? These questions all concern the ontological status of institutions, which is crucial to consider before even asking how we can study them

A Critical Realist Approach to the Study

of World Politics

Despite these concerns, most of us might still immediately think of regional institutions as real in the sense that we hear or read about them and their impact on world politics—thus, it would stand to reason that regional institutions play a certain role with respect to international rela-tions and corresponding events and outcomes Related to this, Collier illustrates aptly two common opposing problems for realists: “It might be thought that realism is too obviously true to be worth saying; or it might

be thought that anything so obvious to commonsense is probably false” ( 1994 , 3) This problem involves the question of “Realism about what?” given that there seem to be different ways to be a realist While some might be realists about concrete events or objects that can be tangibly experienced or observed, others might be realists about language or sensa-tions There are thus many things that are real, but they are so in distinctly different ways (Fleetwood 2004 ) Accordingly, regional institutions seem

to possess particular properties characterizing their constitution and bilities that their constituent members do not Those underlying struc-tures of events or meanings are what determine how exactly they come into being It is this deeper understanding of realism that accounts for the conditions of possibility that this work puts forward

The upturn in philosophical thought that constituted this kind of depth realism over the last three decades is mainly associated with the works specifi cally of Roy Bhaskar ( 1994 , 1998 , 2008 ) 1 Critical realism is a phi-losophy of science that is, in the fi rst place, concerned with the conditions for science to be possible, as well as enabling its methods and implications (Bhaskar 1998 , 2008 ; Danermark et al 2002 ; Sayer 2000 ) In this regard,

it can be understood—and has actually developed as—an alternative to the (dominant) positivist model of science Bhaskar ( 2008 ) argues that there

is a complex reality that—in contrast to empiricist or idealist philosophical traditions—exists independent of actual patterns and events, as well as of the human minds that theorize about it 2 With this he gives priority to the ontological question “What must the world be like for science to be possi-ble?” ( 2008 , 23), and criticizes the prioritization given to epistemological questions in the empiricist tradition Rather than only looking at concrete events and observable objects, critical realists are mainly interested in their distinct underlying powers and corresponding inner structures, as well as the question of whether they are exercised in ways observable or unob-servable to us

To clarify right from the start, this work focuses on critical realism—which should be understood as a subset of a broader tradition of realism

in the philosophy of science in general, whereby in the literature, the latter

is also often referred to as scientifi c realism (see Leplin 1984 ; Niiniluoto

1999 ) Critical realism has certain claims in common with the ments of broader scientifi c realism, but focuses on examining these claims

commit-in the wider context of studycommit-ing the social world (Jackson 2011 ) Following Bhaskar ( 1998 ), critical realism combines a more general philosophy of science (transcendental realism) with a philosophy of social science (critical naturalism)—thereby aiming to capture the interface between the natural and the social world While critical realism includes both a philosophical and a scientifi c ontology, neither can be said to be equivalent to scientifi c realism as it is understood in a broader sense The critical realist approach advanced here acts on the basis of a posited complexity notion (instead of

on historical materialist notions) and contains two aspects: a philosophical one and a more social–scientifi c one

Metatheoretical inquiry, as Kurki notes, “does not concern the analysis

of how we might theorize a world political event or pattern, but rather philosophical analysis of the kinds of theoretical concepts and tools that researchers use in their empirical analyses” ( 2010 , 131) With this, criti-cal realism should not and will not be another big idea or great debate in

IR. Instead it is a way of approaching and considering things differently, specifi cally by focusing on ontological questions and asking about the deeper underlying mechanisms or structures underpinning processes and phenomena in world politics For this reason, it provides a metatheoretical basis that facilitates thinking of regional institutions as real by recognizing that they make a difference and possess emergent properties and powers that are different from those of their constituent members

In this chapter, I introduce critical realism as a philosophy of science, starting by giving a broad overview of this particular metatheory in the context of the wider debate on the relevance of the philosophy of science and on its implications for social science research ( 2.1 ) 3 In the second sec-tion ( 2.2 ), the critical realist ontology and epistemology is deepened by fur-ther illustrating relevant key concepts: namely, causality and mechanisms, stratifi cation and emergence, and open and closed systems Furthermore, the signifi cance of conceptualizations for social science research is stressed

by drawing on how critical realists abstract by means of structural analysis that is then followed by causal analysis Subsequently ( 2.3 ), I turn to the crucial question of the signifi cance critical realism has for the methodology

of social science Guidelines for research are presented in consideration of central themes—such as generalization, inference, and explanation—and in

discussing the relation between theory and method In addition, I address the interface between theory and practice by representing the relationship between structure and agency as a necessary precondition for social science research The chapter closes with some concluding remarks on the implica-tions that critical realism has for the study of world politics ( 2.4 )

2.1 A REALIST PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

In the last few years, there has been a growing discussion on the phy of science and its relevance and implications for studying international relations (e.g Jackson 2011 ; Wight 2002 ; or, the various contributions

philoso-to a symposium on “Who needs philosophy of science, anyway?” in

International Theory ( 2009 )) These debates lately enjoyed new

momen-tum with the publication of Patrick Thaddeus Jackson’s The Conduct of

Inquiry in International Relations ( 2011 ), with subsequent discussions

being dedicated to it (see contributions to a forum in Millennium ( 2013 )

on Jackson’s volume) Jackson draws attention to the exceptionality of IR, being hallmarked by a variety of different theoretical voices wherein con-sensus is not easy to achieve Nevertheless, each theoretical approach rep-resents a valid way of producing knowledge about international politics The author argues for plurality with regard to methodological differences within the discipline, and criticizes the “pull away from philosophical ontology toward scientifi c ontology” (Jackson 2011 , 28) that becomes visible in many cases Here, scholars in fact argue for putting ontology

fi rst—but essentially, instead, name underlying conceptions of objects of the world rather than setting out how they as researchers are connected

to that world

Within this debate, critical realism has established itself as a distinct metatheoretical IR approach It provides its own views on scientifi c prob-lems such as agents and structures, or the understanding of causality It raises especially awareness of the importance of philosophical ontology: The problems we look at, the questions we ask, the methods we choose, and the nature of our proceedings all rest upon certain philosophical–ontological commitments being made in the fi rst place Although all these aspects are inherently related and crucial for achieving mutual understand-ing between different approaches, they are often disregarded in empirical studies on world politics Or, as Wight puts it, if terms like ontology, epis-temology, and methodology are used, they “are often thrown around like

philosophical hand grenades, with little consideration given to how they are deployed, or to what end” ( 2002 , 26)

In the following, I will shortly locate critical realism in the wider losophy of science debate with the core aim of clarifying key distinctions (e.g between philosophical ontology and scientifi c ontology) and the critical realist understanding and application of terms such as “science” or

phi-“knowledge.” This is important to be able to follow the structure and form

of argumentation of this work, and thus sets the stage for the critical ist approach to institutional emergence in East Asia to be developed here The Science Question and Two Distinct Types of Ontology Critical realism understands itself essentially as a philosophy of science According to Psillos and Curd, philosophy of science “deals with the philosophical problems that arise within science” ( 2008 , xix) Two major strands herein can be discerned: a general philosophy of science that aims

real-to understand science as a cognitive activity undertaken real-to gain beliefs about the world, and a philosophy of individual sciences that focuses on these issues within Physics, Biology, and others Philosophy of science is

a specifi c branch of Philosophy, as are philosophy of mind, philosophy

of language, and so on The success of modern science led to the gence of the philosophy of science, which claims to refl ect on the prac-tice of science and its essential elements (Wight 2002 , 26) Philosophers

emer-of science emer-often focus much more on particular sciences—for example, the philosophy of the social science attempts to examine the distinctive nature of that fi eld of enquiry, its scientifi c explanations, and its theories

In this work, I understand philosophy of social science as comprising two main aspects: fi rst, the knowledge production process of social science and, second, the ontological objects that social science is concerned with (see Kurki 2009b )

There is an endless debate over the so-called “demarcation problem” asking where to draw the line between science and non-science (see Benton and Craib 2001 ; Blaikie 2007 ; Williams 2000 ) The word “science” comes originally from the Latin word “scientia,” which means “knowledge.” The defi nition of science is, however, culturally specifi c While in German and other European thought, for example, the term “Wissenschaft” stands for all learning or knowledge in general and can thus be applied to different branches of scholarly enquiry, science for native English speakers is essen-tially associated with the natural sciences (Ackroyd 2004 , 138)

It is the latter understanding that has predominantly infl uenced debates about knowledge production and the science question in IR: Formal models, law-like regularities, and generalizations have been linked to the

“scientifi c” inquiry of international relations, especially as a result of the

“second great debate” (Bull 1969 ; Knorr and Rosenau 1969 ; M. J Levy

1969 ) 4 The work of Hollis and Smith ( 1990 ) turned the focus of the ence debate toward two different intellectual traditions, by arguing that next to the dominant scientifi c method, there is another way of produc-ing knowledge According to this, researchers follow either “explaining,” which is based on scientifi c principles, or “understanding,” which builds

sci-on hermeneutic principles A combinatisci-on of these two accounts is not possible Despite its infl uence on the various modes of inquiry in IR, the discussion by Hollis and Smith ultimately maintained positivist principles (Wight 2002 , 36)

Critical realists acknowledge that the subject matter of the social ences is in some respects different from the one of natural sciences, but argue that it is exactly according to these differences that a social science is even possible in the fi rst place given that “it is the nature of the object that determines the form of its possible science” (Bhaskar 1998 , 3) Although defending a qualifi ed naturalism, the latter is clearly not grounded in posi-tivism—in that it allows for a science that includes methods drawn from both the natural and social sciences Just as with any other science, social science is “a discipline signifi cantly concerned with the production, repro-duction, distribution, and redistribution of positioned powers in all their numerous… forms” (T. Lawson 2012b , 382)

For critical realists, social science is of great relevance for life in that

it develops and changes our understandings of it A theory-motivated social science aims to identify the structures, mechanisms, and tendencies that the social world is comprised of Science is thus an ongoing activity,

“a  process in thought and nature which attempts to express in thought the natures and constitutions and ways of acting of things that exist inde-pendently of thought” (Bhaskar 2008 , 249–250) It is a kind of method

to acquire beliefs and knowledge of the world, ones that ultimately help

us to move within it Since science is itself practical, Sayer argues that “we should perhaps think of knowledge not so much as a representation of the world, as a means for doing things in it” ( 1992 , 48)

Another crucial question is how we produce knowledge As previously mentioned, Jackson criticizes here the “pull away from philosophical ontol-ogy towards scientifi c ontology” ( 2011 , 28) in IR research To understand

this argument, it is necessary to clarify the difference between cal and scientifi c ontology Ontology asks about the kinds of things that are in the world This very general use of the term is usually associated with metaphysical or philosophical ontology 5 In a basic sense, ontology refers to the study of being, whereby being has, though, two denotations:

philosophi-fi rst, something that is or exists (an entity or a thing) and second, what all entities that are or exist have in common It is along these lines that criti-cal realists such as Lawson ( 2004 ) stipulate the differentiation between scientifi c and philosophical ontology: While the study of what is or exists

is designated as scientifi c ontology, the study of what all entities that exist have in common is distinguished as philosophical ontology When we read about “ontology” debates in the social sciences, in most cases it is not the latter kind that is being referred to but rather the former This scientifi c reading Bhaskar ( 1994 , 47; 2008 , 29–30) also calls scientifi c ontology, while another term often used for it is “regional ontology” (Benton and Craib 2001 , 5) This relates to Jackson’s ( 2011 ) criticism that general claims of philosophical ontology in IR are often mixed up with claims about objects and entities—that is, with elements of scientifi c ontology Bhaskar describes the distinction between philosophical and scientifi c ontology as the differentiation “between the kind of world presupposed

by a philosophical account of science and the particular types of entities and processes postulated by some substantive scientifi c theory” ( 2009 , 24) Regarding the confl ation of philosophical and scientifi c ontology, he stresses that “a philosophical ontology is developed by refl ection upon what must

be the case for science to be possible; and this is independent of any actual scientifi c knowledge” ( 2008 , 39) A scientifi c ontology thus designates the entities and processes that are presupposed by a scientifi c theory, meaning that each discipline has its own scientifi c ontology that describes the various entities, relations, and the like that it is concerned with

What this critical realist reading suggests is that philosophical ontology comes prior to scientifi c ontology, in that the former creates the kind of world presupposed for any kind of identifi ed entities and processes that are projected by the latter A fi rst step for Bhaskar ( 1994 ) to reestablish and pursue philosophical ontology is to embrace the fact that, instead of being dogmatic and transcendent, it may be conditional and immanent This means that the subject matter need not be separate from the one inves-tigated by science, but rather that it can explore the structure of the world

by taking into account what can be established about it from dental arguments By asking for the conditions of possibility, it is crucial