Documentos CIDOB Asia, n.º 23

In recent decades, we have seen how regional cooperation between states has been employed to deal jointly with the new problems and challenges being presented by the new international system. Furthermore, together with the phenomenon of regionalism, the process of political and economical globalisation has made possible the creation of a world governance in which, in addition to states, regional blocs are conceived as another element in a system of multiple governance. It is precisely in this post-Westphalian world that some regions have begun to create links between each other, to give rise to the phenomenon of inter-regionalism. The ASEM process, initiated in 1996 between the EU member nations and 10 Asian countries, was devised as an informal forum for political and economic dialogue between the leaders of the two regions. Yeo Lay Hwee and Lluc López i Vidal examine the ASEM process through its theoretical framework (that is to say, through an analysis of the phenomenon of inter-regionalism in the theories on international relations), but also from a dynamic standpoint, by taking a look at how the forum has evolved during the more than 12 years of its existence, its role in the multiple system of governance, and its systemic functions, from a dual perspective – both Asian and European.

ISSN: 1696-9987 (print edition)
ISSN: 1697-381X (online edition)

76 pp.