Why is There No NATO in Asia? Collective Identity, Regionalism, and the Origins of Multilateralism

Abstract

Regional groupings and regional effects are of growing importance in world politics. Although often described in geographical terms, regions are political creations and not fixed by geography. Even regions that seem most natural and inalterable are products of political construction and subject to reconstruction attempts. Looking at specific instances in which such constructions have occurred can tell us a great deal about the shape and the shaping of international politics.In the aftermath of World War II, the United States attempted to create and organize both a North Atlantic and a Southeast Asian region. The institutional forms of these regional groupings, however, differed dramatically. With its North Atlantic partners, the United States preferred to operate on a multilateral basis. With its Southeast Asian partners, in contrast, the United States preferred to operate bilaterally. Why? Perceptions of collective identity, we argue, played an underappreciated role in this decision. Shaped by racial, historical, political, and cultural factors, U.S. policymakers saw their potential European allies as relatively equal members of a shared community. America's potential Asian allies, in contrast, were seen as part of an alien and, in important ways, inferior community. At the beginning of the Cold War, this difference in mutual identification, in combination with material factors and considerations of efficiency, was of critical importance in defining the interests and shaping the choices of U.S. decision makers in Europe and Asia. Different forms of cooperation make greater or lesser demands on shared identities. Multilateralism is a particularly demanding form of international coopFor criticisms and suggestions of earlier drafts of this paper, we would like to thank Tim Borstelmann,

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