Critical junctures and institution-building: regional cooperation on free trade and food security in East Asia

Abstract

This study examines conditions under which states in East Asia engage in the development of regional institutions. It assumes that crucial external events and shocks, which produce specific historical breakpoints À critical junctures À constitute a significant breakpoint at which the regional states willingly elevated a path to develop regional institutions to a new level. The analysis of the development of regional institutions for a free trade area and food stock for emergency revealed that regional states in East Asia changed their views on the evolving reality created by external shocks and such changes led to the creation of new regional institutions.

Political Economy of Rice Policy in Indonesia: A Perspective on the ASEAN Economic Opportunity

“…Furthermore, some ASEAN countries revealed their weak interest in using or strengthening the APTERR reserves for further food security. For instance, in 2012, when Thailand's rice exports dropped dramatically due to internal policies, including a planned rice cartel that would have contradicted the APTERR agreement (Yoshimatsu, 2016). The already-established APTERR mechanism is not seen as a strategic platform-its core function as an emergency reserve has already been undermined.…”