Power, identity and multilateralism: The United States and regional institutionalization in the Asia-Pacific

This dissertation addresses the apparently anomalous pattern of Asia-Pacific institution-building since World War II. Why were the United States, Canada and the countries of Western Europe able to forge a successful multilateral alliance across the Atlantic after World War II, but in the Pacific, a ‘hub and spokes’ bilateral model of alliances between the U.S. and six Asian states was all that resulted? Similarly, why did the Asia-Pacific's multilateral institutions only begin to appear after 1989? Traditional theories of institutional development claim that a dominant hegemon is a prerequisite for the creation of multilateral institutions. Why then, in Asia, did it take the apparent decline of American hegemony before multilateral institutions like Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) appeared?; Few explanations for the ‘Asia-Pacific anomaly’ have been offered. Rationalist approaches such as neorealism and hegemonic stability theory do not perform well when considered against these two cases. Threat-based realism and neoliberalism retain some explanatory value, but they do not capture important parts of the process whereby the United States was persuaded to accept the creation of multilateral dialogues like the ARF.; Rather than focussing on the distribution of capabilities, the balance of threats or the role of material incentives in explaining cooperation, this dissertation looks at the social structure of trans-Pacific relations. It argues that only by taking into account different cultural and political norms can we explain the apparently anomalous pattern of Asia-Pacific institution-building after World War II. Only by factoring in a role for ideas, socialisation and social influences can we explain how an incipient regional identity has been formed that overcame identity dissonance and allowed for multilateral institutions to bloom since 1989.; The dissertation concludes that there is a need for theorising that accords greater priority to identity and ideas, without eliminating the insights gained from materialist and threat-based approaches. It supports calls for the adoption of an eclectic approach to theorising of regional security issues in the Asia-Pacific, and urges more analysis of the transformation of the American bilateral alliance system.