East Asian Cooperation

East Asian Cooperation

A key liberalist argument is , “cooperation is hard to achieve but is not entirely impossible.” Liberalists are firm advocates of regimes and regime design. They emphasize that under several given conditions states will create institutions in order to achieve mutual gains through policy coordination and cooperation. Under these conditions, the states will agree to be bound by certain rules, norms, or decisions of international organizations. This does not mean that the most powerful states in the system will always obey the rules. Rather, institutions affect international politics because they open up new means to cooperate as they foster negotiations among states as well as compliance with mutually agreed rules and standards.
The 1997 Asian Financial crisis is an account that illustrates the importance of the existence of regime and regime design. The financial crisis began in March when difficulties in Thailand’s financial institutions sparked a tremendous outflow of capital from the country. As capital fled, the Thai baht was weakened, forcing the government to float. Within weeks, the crisis spread to Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. By the end of 1997 Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea had all been forced to turn to International Monetary Fund for funding aid in return for agreement to reform their economies under heavy IMF-imposed conditions. The management of the Asian Financial crisis led some policy makers to call for stronger, more effective international institutions, including a capacity to ensure better information and monitoring, deeper cooperation, and regulation in the world-economy.
In the liberalist view, the prime example of a successfully advanced institution is the European Union (EU). It is a particular case because it has gone furthest in terms of powers transferred from its member states to the central institutions. The EU had witnessed progress in the economic realm, with a single market and a single currency creating a more...

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