Asian-European Relations - Building Blocks for Global Governance?

Interregional Relations are a novel field within international relations which have increasingly been attracting scholarly interest. Thus, over the last five years or so, Interregional Relations has firmly established itself as a research field, initially within political science, and gradually in economics. This volume assesses interregional relations between Asia and Europe. It contributes to the most recent developments in research by providing impressively rich studies to test existing theoretical frameworks. Featured in this volume are conceptual contributions, in particular, theoretically inspired studies which conduct in-depth investigation of a broad variety of interregional interactions, such as the political management of globalisation through interregional co-operation, regional security, human rights and finally, the dialogue between Asian and European NGOs. The economic contributions likewise undertake an extensive assessment of areas such as interregional trade and investment flows, the Asian Development Bank and interregional mergers. Applying established theories to concrete phenomena, Asian-European Relations provides a comprehensive understanding of inter-regionalism and how co-operation between Asia and Europe should be fashioned in the new millennium. The integration of political and economic research in this book will be of interest to graduates and researchers in the fields of international relations, international economics, regional integration, and interregionalism.

Part 1:Introduction and Theoretical Issues 1. Introduction: Co-Operation and Regional Integration: The Case of Asia-Europe Relations Jürgen Rüland/Cornelia Storz 2. Regional Organisations as Actors in International Relations. Interregionalism and Asymmetric Dialogues Mathew Doidge Part 2: Case Studies of Asian-European Interregional Relations Involving Government Actors 3. Governance, Asian-Europe Relations and Trade Facilitation Doris Fischer 4. Interregional Trade and Investment between Asia and Europe – An Empirical Investigation Hanns G. Hilpert/Klaus-Jochem Kecker 5. The Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and Its Contribution to the Political Management of Globalisation Howard Loewen/Dirk Nabers 6. Asian-European Relations: More Security through Inter- and Transregional Relations? Frank Umbach 7. EU-Asia Human Rights Policy: Pursuing the Path of Institutionalism Martina Timmermann 8. On the Potentials of Interregional Policy Co-operation – The Case of Europe’s Participation in the Asian Development Bank Werner Pascha Part 3: The Non-State Dimension of Asia-Europe Interregionalism 9. M&A between Japanese and European Enterprises: How to Integrate Different Institutional Regimes Andreas Moerke 10. Beyond the Taboos? The Opportunities and Limitations of Asian-European Track-two Dialogue Katja Freistein 11. The Democratisation of Inter- and Transregional Dialogues: The Role of Civil Society, NGO and Parliaments Sebastian Bersick Part 4: Conclusion 12. Main Findings and Conclusion: Assessing the Surplus Value of Asia-Europe Interregionalism Gunter Schubert