The stabilisation through regional and multilateral cooperation within the framework of the European Union is the topic today. These terms are all part of standard political discourse in South East Europe, often accompanied by description of abundant initiatives by various regional or multilateral organisations. What is more often lacking is an explicit idea about how these institutional initia...

Abstract The degree of institutionalized cooperation on security among three or more the five Central Asian states remains moderate. Currently, regional is nurtured in part via frameworks provided by external state and nonstate partners. A rational institutionalist perspective has been invoked, suggesting demand for cooperation. This view also insinuates that it would be reasonable these states...

This paper argues that the collective action in Asia by its regional organizations has historically suffered from a “capability–legitimacy gap”: a disjuncture between the capability (in terms of material resources) of major Asian powers to lead regional cooperation on the one hand and their political legitimacy and will as regional leaders on the other. Successful collective action requires lea...

Accompanying the unprecedented outburst of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), scholarly interests in the new wave of regionalism have been flourishing. Yet, notwithstanding its contribution, extant literature has paid little attention to an important aspect of FTA formation: the choice of FTA partners and the underlying structure of the FTA network. While theoretical conjectures about likely FTA par...

There is a strong presumption among economists that domestic reforms are promoted by regionalism. Yet strong empirical evidence for this proposition is lacking. This paper examines both the theoretical arguments and empirical evidence on this issue, drawing on the relevant economic, political, and legal literature. The authors argue that in general, the case for reciprocity in domestic reforms ...