ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theoretical argumente that link leadership to cooperation in the context of ongoing changes in the world political economy and its Asia-Pacific subsystem. It argues that maintenance of a significant United States (US) strategic presence will provide the basis for any regionalised arrangements to cope with the highly fluid security environment in the Asia-Pacific, whether those arrangements remain largely a US-centred network of bilateral ties or whether more ambitious multilateral forms are sought. The chapter discusses the question of the role of leadership in forming regional economic institutions and examines the competition between Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation and the East Asian Economic Caucus as a political controversy over definition of the region's political- economic space and, derivatively, its leadership. It concludes that leadership will have to be further pluralised beyond the US and Japan and that negotiation over regional cooperation will entail more complex forms of bargaining and coalition formation.
