ABSTRACT
Open regionalism, in terms of the conceptual framework advanced in this chapter, is not so much a strategy of economic liberalization as a regional regime of political economy that encompasses a set of institutions, domestic coalitional structures and international strategies. The nature of regional integration in East Asia, it will be argued, needs to be understood in the context of the manner in which domestic structures have underpinned a particular project of regional integration that goes under the rubric of open regionalism. The coherent moves towards regional integration need to be seen as political projects undertaken by domestic actors and coalitions. In other words, regional political projects have roots in domestic structures, and these domestic structures in turn have come under increasing pressure in an era of globalization.
