Why is ThereNo NATO in Asia? CollectiveIdentity, Regionalism, and the Originsof Multilateralism Christopher Hemmer and PeterJ. Katzenstein Regionalgroupings and regional effects are of growing importance in world politics.Although often described in geographical terms, regions are political creationsand not xedby geography. Even regions that seem most natural and inalterableare productsof political construction and subject to reconstruction attempts.Looking at speci c instancesin which such constructions have occurred cantell us a greatdeal about the shape and the shaping of internationalpolitics. Inthe aftermath of World War II, theUnited States attempted to create and organizeboth a NorthAtlantic and a SoutheastAsian region. The institutional forms oftheseregional groupings, however, differed dramatically. With its North Atlantic partners,the United States preferred to operate on a multilateralbasis. With its SoutheastAsian partners, in contrast, the United States preferred to operate bilat- erally.Why? Perceptions of collective identity, we argue,played an underappre- ciatedrole in this decision. Shaped by racial, historical, political, and cultural factors,U.S. policymakerssaw theirpotential European allies as relatively equal membersof asharedcommunity. America’ s potentialAsian allies, in contrast, were seenas part of an alien and, in important ways, inferior community. At the beginningof theCold War, thisdifference in mutualidenti cation, in combination withmaterial factors and considerations of efciency, was ofcriticalimportance in dening the interests and shaping the choices of U.S. decisionmakers in Europe and Asia.Different forms ofcooperation make greater or lesser demands on shared identities.Multilateralism is a particularlydemanding form ofinternational coop- Forcriticisms andsuggestions of earlier draftsof thispaper, we wouldlike to thank Tim Borstelmann, SteveBurgess, Allen Carlson, Jeffrey Checkel,Matthew Evangelista, Martha Finnemore, Judith Gen- tleman,Mary Hampton, Robert Keohane, Jonathan Kirshner, Masaru Kohno,Stephen Krasner, David Lai,Walter LaFeber,David Laitin, Kier Lieber,Rose McDermott,Matthew Rhodes, Thomas Risse, Jae-JungSuh, and Chris Way. We alsoare gratefulto the editors and reviewers of IO whosecareful readingshave greatly improved this paper. The views expressedhere are thoseof theauthors alone and donotnecessarily reect theviews oftheAir War Collegeor anyother U.S. government department or agency. InternationalOrganization 56,3, Summer 2002,pp. 575– 607 ©2002by The IO Foundationand the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology 576 InternationalOrganization eration.It requiresa strongsense of collective identity in addition to shared interests. Thiscase is of more than passing historical interest. In recent years, realist and liberaltheorists of internationalrelations have debated, more than once, the relative importanceand ef cacyof materialcapabilities versus institutions in worldpolitics. Realistshave argued that international anarchy and the security dilemma it creates makeinternational institutions epiphenomenal or, at best, marginal to worldpolitics. Liberalshave claimed instead that institutions have noticeable effects that can amelioratethe security dilemma. After theend of the Cold War andthe collapse of theSoviet Union, neorealist theory, for example,expected the North Atlantic Treaty Organization(NATO) todisintegrate quickly. Neoliberalism did not. Instead, neoliberalsargued that NATO helpedcreate conditions that were conduciveto peacein Europe after 1945 and that, therefore, NATO was likelyto prosper and endure.1 Morethan a decadehas passed since the end of theCold War and,far from disappearing,NATO isexpanding. Theempirical research program of neoliberalinstitutionalism remains, however, largelyrestricted to asmallpool of successfulWestern institutions such as NATO, theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs andTrade/ WorldTrade Organization (GATT/ WTO), orthe European Union (EU). 2 Evenin these cases, neoliberal theory encountersuncomfortable dif culties.Why did the Warsaw Pactnot persist as uncertaintyincreased in Eastern Europe ’ssecurityenvironment in 1989 –90? And whydid NATO ratherthan the Organization for Securityand Cooperation in Europe becomeEurope ’spreferredsecurity regime in the 1990s? An exclusive focus on unmeasuredinstitutional ef cienciesthat are createdby a stipulatedlowering of transactioncosts and a varietyof institutionalasset speci citiesrisks slighting the causalimportance of material capabilities and collective identities. “Institutional assets,” writesCeleste A. Wallander, “affectthe costs and effectiveness of alterna- tivestrategies, but they do not determine purpose. ”3 Neoliberalinstitutionalism ’scentralclaim —thatinstitutions develop when states foreseeself-interested bene tsfrom cooperationunder conditions that are propitious for overcomingobstacles to cooperation —remainsin need of further testing and re nement. “Asingle,deductive model is a bridgetoo far, ” concludeBarbara Koremenos,Charles Lipson, and Duncan Snidal, further stating that “Bedrock preferencesare constant —ahallmarkassumption and limitation of the rational approach.”4 Securityarrangements in Asiaremain a puzzle.Multilateral institutions faileddespite the presence of self-interested bene tsfrom cooperation.Even though,as in Europe, multilateral security arrangements would have provided information,reduced transaction costs, made commitments more credible, and establishedfocal points for coordinatingpolicies, after 1945 the U.S. government 1. See Duf eld1998; Haftendorn, Keohane, and Wallander 1999; and Wallander 1999 and 2000. 2.Kohno 1996. 3.Wallander 2000, 712. 4.Koremenos, Lipson, and Snidal 2001, 1065, 1074. NoNATO inAsia 577 optedfor ahub-and-spokessystem of bilateral alliances in Asia with the United Statesat the center. “If NATO was sosuccessful in Europe, ” asksMasaru Kohno, “whywas itnotcopied in East Asia in theaftermath of WorldWar II? ”5 Neoliberal theory,by itself, offers nocompelling answer to this question. Neitherdoes a realistanalysis that focuses exclusively on capabilities and interests.Realist scholars are right to insist that the main U.S. interestswere served wellby forming a setof bilateralalliances in Asia. 6 Butthey remain silent on the issueof why those interests favored multilateral arrangements in Europe and bilateralones in Asia. Material capabilities alone offer littlehelp in answering the questionof why there was noNATO inAsia. Strictformulations of both liberalism and realism are less convincing than eclecticvariants that also incorporate important insights from constructivisttheory. 7 Eclecticexplanations highlight the causal importance of socialfacts such as power statusand threat perceptions, in addition to the material facts and ef ciency considerationsstressed by rationalistapproaches. Eclectic explanations also under- cut rei cationssuch as thedistinction between domestic and international levels of analysis.Theoretical eclecticism cuts against the paradigmatic organization of most contemporaryscholarship on internationalrelations. Thinking in termsof schools of thought,as James Fearon and Alex Wendt argue, at the very least can “encourage scholarsto be method-driven rather than problem-driven in their research, which mayresult in importantquestions or answers beingignored if they are not amenable tothepreferred paradigmatic fashion. ”8 Toliberalism, constructivism adds consid- erationof the effects identities have on both formal and informal institutions. To neorealism,it adds consideration of the effects of ideational rather than material structures,speci callythe effects of identity on actor interests. 9 Inthe second section of this article, we brie ycontrastthe policies the United Statespursued in Europe and Asia during the early Cold War. Althoughstrikingly littlecomparative work has been done contrasting U.S. foreignpolicy in Asia and Europe,in thefollowing section we brie yexploreexplanations that can be gleaned from theexisting literature on why the United States preferred multilateral orga- nizingprinciples in Europe and bilateral ones in Asia. Next, we putforward three eclecticexplanations that combine the material and ef ciencyfactors stressed in realistand liberal explanations with social factors stemming from thedifferent levelsof identi cationAmerican policymakers felt with regard to their European andAsian allies. Finally, we exploresome of the theoretical and empirical impli- cationsof thisargument. 5.Kohno 1996, 7. 6. Ibid., 29–33. 7.See Wendt1999; Ruggie 1998; and Katzenstein 1996b. 8.Fearon and Wendt 2001, 1. 9.See Adlerand Barnett 1998; Neumann 1999; and Acharya 2000and 2001. 578 InternationalOrganization ConstructingRegions and Regional Institutions After1945 Whenthe U.S. Senate rst beganto debatethe issue of aformalU.S. commitment toEuropefollowing World War II, SenatorHenry Cabot Lodge, Jr. was puzzledas hiscolleagues began to discuss the relationship between the United States and its potentialEuropean allies as a regionalone. “Certainly,” he argued, “the United Statesand Western Europe ” couldnot be part of thesame region. “Certainly,” they could,Senator Arthur Vandenberg responded, “becausethis is a NorthAtlantic region.” Thisexchange initiated a shortdebate over how far theconcept of aregion couldbe stretched. Could a regionbe anythinga statewanted it to be, or did3,000 milesof ocean render absurd any talk of acommonregion? 10 Thisbrief exchange underscoresthe fact that regions do not just exist as material objects