One Definition a Day: Integration
"Integration is both a process and an end state. The aim of the end state sought when actors integrate is a political community. The process or processes include athe means or instruments whereby that political community is achieved. There is an important proviso which must be entered immediately.
The process of integration should be voluntary and concensual. Integration which proceeds by force and coercion is imperialism.
Although historically empire-building has some of the characteristics currently attributed to integration, modern scholarship has been insistent that the process of integration should be regarded as non-coercive.
Taking a historical perspective, the most significant attempts at building political communities in the past have been directed towards the creation of nation-states.
Nationalists sentiments have often preferred to describe this as unification rather than integration. Current scholarship, with its emphasis between state actors, can present a truncated view of the process if due regard is not paid to the nation-building purposes of earlier eras.
An integrated political community must possess certain structural characteristics. Thus typically among states integration will produce a collective configuration of decision-making that will be closer to supranational ideal type rather than the international. For instance, collective decisions might be taken by a majority of the membership and the strict unanimy principle would be abandoned.
The need for policy integration will be particularly important if the nascent community is responsible for the allocation of goods and services between the consituent units.
This will certainly be the case in those instances where political community building is predicted upon economic integration via customes unions and common markets.
This aspect of community building has particularly exercised the interest and attention of students of integration in the post-1945 period.
Source : Dictionary of International Relations, Penguin (1998) by Authors Graham Evans and Jeffrey Newnham
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IR - One Definition A Day, Free Trade Area (p. 184, Ref. 1)
A form of economic uniton between states. In a free trade area the constituent members agree to abolish tariffs and other restrictions on stipulated goods between themselves. However, vis-à-vis the rest of the system they continue to maintain the structure of their existing tariffs. A free trade area is therefore a less integrated system than a customs untion because there is no common external tariff.
Although a free trade area is less integrated it may prove to be just as complicated to implement because rules and procedures have to be agreed to prevent goods entering the area from outside via those member states with the lowest range of tariffs. Without the claer rules about origin, the states with the lowest tariffs will benefit most from a free trade area, because trade and production will be deflected in their favour. Logic would suggest that a free trade area works best where the members have a similar pattern of external tariffs, or where they agree to substantial hamrmonisation of tariffs to reduce differentials. For this reason a free trade area is often seen as the preliminary stage in the formulation of a full customs union.
During the 1950s considerable discussion took place among Western European state members of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) about the desirability of forming a free trade area. Agreement was not possible, however, and instead the membership became divided between those states wishing to proceed much further with integration in order to form a customs union and the remainder, led by the UK, wanting to stay with the free trade area idea.
The formation of the European Community (EC) constituent insitution, the European Economic Community (EEC) under the Treaty of Rome in 1957, seemed to settle the issue. In retaliation the British formed the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) under the Stockholm Treaty in 1959. EFTA was a bargaining chip designed to force the EC to expand its membership and to lower the common external tariff. The EC refused to negotiate with EFTA en bloc and in 1961 the British defected to begin access negotiations with the Community.
Free trade areas, as forms of economic integration, were covered by General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Although it might seem that some aspects of the free trade area idea contradict the GATT principle of non-discrimination, exceptions were made in the Agreement for these types of groupings. Currently the Asia-Pacific region is following the lead set by Europe in mid-century. Various forms of economic cooperation are under exploration and more specifically the establishment of NAFTA exemplifies this trend.
(Source: Penguin Dictionary of IR)
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Original Title in English: ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan, Korea) - Towards an Economic Union in East Asia?
Edited by Karl Peter Schönfisch and Bernhard Seliger
Publisher: Hanns-Seidel Foundation (HSF) Seoul-Singapore, ISBN:89-954964
My ref: ATA-101
Proposed Title in Vietnamese:
ASEAN cộng 3 (Trung Quốc, Nhật Bản và Hàn Quốc) - Hội nghị Seoul năm 2004
Backcover: Economic integration has come to the forefront of economic policy making in East Asia, finally. After lagging behind in forming a comprehensive regional integration area for various historical, political, cultural and economic reasons, today the discussion ranges from the introduction of bilateral Free Trade Agreements (FTA) through currency and financial market cooperation to a full fledged economic community. Heterogeneity of East Asian States and divergences in economic size and economic development are not longer seen purely as obstacles to integration, but also as potential complementarities. In this book, which collects the contributions of two international conferences hold in Seoul in December 2003, authors from the region as well as from Germany explore the future of economic integration in East Asia in a comparative regional perspective.
Contents
1. Introduction - Economic Integration in East Asia and Europe - Bernhard Seliger;
2. The East Asia Economic Community : Prospects and Implications - Pengiran Mashor Pengiran Admad;
Part One: East Asian Integration in the Light of the European Experience - The Valuable Lessons
3.Economic Integration in East Asia and Europe - A Comparison - Werner Pascha;
4. Integration through Competition: The European Experience - Gerhard Prosi;
5. The European Union and East Asian Integration - Lessons from Dealing with the Costs of Success - Jinwoo Choi;
6. Security Cooperation: European Experience and the Asian Way - Sangtu Ko;
7. The Possibility of and Prospects for a China-Japan-South Korea FTA: The Lessons from European Integration - Johgwon Lee;
Part Two: Southeast Asia and the Process of East Asian Economic Integration
8. ASEAN+3 and ASEAN Economic Integration - Jose L. Tongzon;
9. East Asian Economic Integration - A Perspective from Thailand - Nattapong Thongpakde;
10. The East Asian Free Trade Agreement - As ASEAN Perspective - Moh Haflah Piei;
11. East Asian Economic Integration and Implications for the Newer ASEAN Member Countries - Pham Quoc Tru;
Part Three: Towards an East Asian Economic Community
12. East Asian Economic Community and the Scope of East Asian Cooperation - Jae-Seung Lee;
13. Regional Integration in East Asia - Young-Jong Choi;
14. The Theoretical Foundations of ASEAN +3 : Prospects and Limitations Seokwoo Kim.
Contributors
The Editors
- Karl-Peter Schönfisch is currently director of the regional representative office of Hans Seidel Foundation in Singapore and director of the regional leadership and management training programme. Before, he worked as director in the liaison office Bonn (Germany) and Brussels (Belgium) of Hanns Seidel Foundation and had been Head of the Southeast Asian and South Pacific Desks at HSS in Munich. He holds a degree in Economics, Geography and Technical Cooperation from Technical University RWTH Aachen (Germany).
- Bernhard J. Seliger is currently resident representative of HSF in Seoul. From 1998 to 2002, he was Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of International Area Studies of Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and since 1999 Research Fellow at the Institute for Research Into Culture and Economic Systems, Univ. of Witten /Herdecke (Germany). From 1995 to 1998, Dr. Seliger worked as Assistant Researcher at the Institute for Economic Policy, Christian-Albrechts-University at Kiel (Germany), where he received a doctorate (Dr. Sc. Pol) in 1998. Dr. Seliger also holds a Master Degree from Université de Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne, France). Among the research interests of Dr. Seliger are Institutional Economics, Economics of Transformation and Integration and the Economic Development of Korea in Northeast Asia.
The Authors
- Pengiran Mashor Pengiran Ahmad is Deputy Secretary General of ASEAN since August 2003. He is a former ambassador of Brunei Darussalam to Vietnam, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the European Communities. He holds a Degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from the Royal College in Defence Studies in London and an MA Degree in International Relations and Diplomacy of Tufts University, Boston.
- Werner Pascha is Professor of Economics and East Asian Economics at the University of Duisburg /Essen. From 1996 to 1998, he was Director at the Institute of East Asian Science in Duisburg University. Since 1999, he is Vice-Chairman of the German Research Institute for the Economic Development of the Pacific Region. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Freiburg University. Among his numerous research grants are an AKS Fellowship at the Academy for Korean Studies in Seoul and a Japan Foundation Fellowship at Kyoto University in Japan. His numerous publications focus on the East Asian region, especially Northeast Asia.
- Gerhard Prosi is Professor Emeritus of Kiel University, where he had been Director of the Institute for Economic Policy from 1973 to 2001. Currently he is Vice-Chairman of Herrmann Ehlers Foundation. Before, he had been teaching in Princeton University, Southern Methodist University in Dallas and the University of Dallas, Irving. He holds a Ph.D Degree in Economics from Marburg University in Germany. Among his research interests are Competition Policy and Theory, Environmental and Social Policy and Comparative Economic Systems, including European Integration.
- Jinwoo Choi is Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy in Hanyang University of Seoul, as well as Assistant Dean of the College of Social Sciences of Hanyang University. Currently, he is Director General of the Korean Society for Contemporary European Studies. Professor Choi holds a Ph.D Degree in Political Science from University of Washington. He also served in numerous academic associations, among them as Research Director in the Korean Association of International Studies and as Director-General in the Society for European Political Studies.
- Sangtu Ko is currently Professor of Area Studies at Yonseil University, Seoul. He got his Ph.D in Political Science from Free University of Berlin, was General Secretary of the Korean-German Association for Social Science. His recent publications include: Change of US-Russia Relations after the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, published in the Global Economic Review, vol. 31, no. 2, 2002; The Putin Administration's Policy about North Korea, published in the International Journal of Korean Unification Studies, vol. 11, 2002.
- Lee Jongwon is Professor in International Economics at Suwon University. He holds a Ph.D Degree in Economics from the University of Roma. He serves currently as Chairman of the Board of the Korean Society of Contemporary European Studies, where he formerly had been President, and Editorial Director of the Korean International Trade Research Association. He wrote various books and papers regarding International Trade issues and European Integration issues.
- Jose L. Tongzon is Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, National University of Singapore. He specialises in Trade and Development, focusing on the Economics of Southeast Asia. He has taught Trade and Development-related courses at NUS and has written a number of articles in internationally referred journals and books in the area of Trade and Development, including Port and Maritime issues, with special focus on Southeast Asia. Before joining NUS, Dr. Jose Tongzon was Chief Economist of the Port of Melbourne Authority, Australia, and also worked as an Academic and in the Civil Service for the Australian and Philippine Government for several years working in the area of Trade Policy and Regional Cooperation. Dr. Tongzon is an active member of the Chartered Institute of Transport (CIT), the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), and other associations of professional economists. He has also been a Consultant to a number of governments, private and international organisations.
- Nattapong Thongpakde is currently Dean of the School of Development Economics at the National Institute of Development Administration, Thailand. Mr Thongpakde is a Senior Consultant in the International Economic Relations Program of the Thailand Development Research Institute. He holds a Degree in Economics from Boston University. His recent publications focused on Trade issues, Thailand's Economic Development and Regional and Bilateral Cooperation in East Asia.
- Mohd Haflah Piei is currently Deputy Director at the Malaysian Institute of Economics, one of the premier independent think-tanks based in Kuala Lumpur. Prior to joining MIE and since 1975, Dr. Mohr Haflah was Associate Professor and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Economics at the National University of Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur. Dr Mohd Haflah graduated with a Ph.D Degree in Economics in 1983 from the University of Lancaster, UK. He has worked in and contributed extensively to the field of International Trade, particularly in issues pertaining to International Economic Integration. He has served as Consultant to many international organisations, including World Bank, Asian Development Bank (Manila), Islamic Development Bank (Jeddah), UNDP (Kuala Lumpur), ISEAS (Singapore), East-West Centre (Honolulu), Japan Institute of International Affairs (Tokyo), Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI, Tokyo), IDE (Tokyo), Sasakawa Peace Foundation (Tokyo), ASEAN Secretariat, Asian-Europe Foundation (ASEF, Singapore). Dr. Mohd Haflah was a member appointed by the Government of Malaysia to represent the country on the High Level Task Force on ASEAN-AFTA-CER Free Trade Area of the ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta. He has published several books and numerous articles in his field of specialisation.
- Pham Quoc Tru is currently Deputy Director General of the Department for Multilateral Economic Cooperation in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam. Dr Tru holds a Ph.D and MA Degree in Political Science from Laval University, Canada. He is actively involved in the process of East Asian Integration through his participation in multilateral negotiations. His numerous recent publications and studies focus on Vietnam's role in the World Economy, Regional Integration and Trade issues.
- Jae-Seung Lee is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Korea. Professor Lee has taught at Yale University, Seoul National University, and many other institutes in Korea. Professor Lee also participated in drafting the EAVG Report and published numbers of books and articles on East Asian Cooperation. His area of expertise also includes European Integration and International Political Economy. Professor Lee holds a B.A. in Political Science from Seoul National University, an M.A. Degree and a Ph. D Degree in Political Science from Yale University.
- Young-jong Choi is Professor in the Department of International Studies at the Catholic University of Seoul. Dr Choi hold a Ph.D Degree from the University of Washington in Seattle.
- Seokwoo Kim is Assistant Professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Seoul. Dr. Kim holds a Ph.D Degree in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
For Vietnamese translation of this text, click here
by Translator Bảo Hân
