ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses East Asia's historical context, before assessing the importance of two recurring themes: path dependency and the possibility of convergence. The chapter focuses on the period since the recent economic crisis in East Asia. Indeed, the development of regional organisations like ASEAN, the European Union and the North American Free Trade Area may both consolidate such regional biases and even permit continuing national difference rather than international convergence. There are other, more fundamental determinants of such outcomes, however: path dependency and institutional inertia. At the centre of contemporary debates about the possibilities for global convergence and the emergence of common institutional and organisational structures is the globalisation phenomenon. The key points to emphasise here, then, are that states remain crucially important actors even in an era characterised by processes of globalisation, and that institutionally embedded national and regional structures will continue to be key determinants of economic welfare.
