Communities and Citizens: Identity and Difference in Discourses of Asia-Pacific Regionalism

In the post-Cold War world era, increasing attention is being given to forces of regionalism in global politics. These forces raise the possibility of thinking about citizenship beyond the usual borders of the political communities of nation-states. Yet the extension of questions of citizenship to regional levels does not dispel the problems of identity formation and the suppression or exclusion of difference in the construction of communities. In the burgeoning discourses of Asia-Pacific regionalism there is a new orthodoxy which combines elements of neo-realism, neo-liberalism and what is often referred to as an 'Asian way'. But this new orthodoxy neither surrenders nor disturbs sovereign statehood. As a result, discourses of Asia-Pacific regionalism reinforce the kinds of citizenship granted by political communities of existing nation-states of the region and fail to recognize difference within and between these communities.