Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region: perspectives from the United States, Russia and Japan

The articles in this symposium were originally presented to the conference on 'Economic and Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: Agendas for the 1990s' which was held at the National Convention Centre, Canberra in July 1993. It was sponsored jointly by the Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University, and the Program on International Economics and Politics at the East-West Center, Hawaii. The aim of the conference was to examine some of the theories about international cooperation, especially in relation to the emergence and maintenance of cooperative institutions as well as their successes and failures. Until now, much of the work by theorists of cooperative international regimes has focused on Europe and North America. At the same time, analysts and practitioners working within the Asia-Pacific have paid little attention to theories of cooperation — including regime theory.