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Power, leadership, and hegemony in internationalpolitics: the case of East Asia

DIRK NABERS

Review of International Studies / Volume 36 / Issue 04 / October 2010, pp 931 - 949DOI: 10.1017/S0260210510001373, Published online: 01 November 2010

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0260210510001373

How to cite this article:DIRK NABERS (2010). Power, leadership, and hegemony in international politics: the case ofEast Asia. Review of International Studies, 36, pp 931-949 doi:10.1017/S0260210510001373

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Power, leadership, and hegemony ininternational politics: the case of East AsiaDIRK NABERS

Abstract. The article inquires into the conditions of effective leadership of states ininternational politics, and develops a framework for the study of so-called (new) regionalpowers such as Brazil, China, India, and South Africa in processes of regional institution-building. Various theoretical strands will be discussed as to the requirements of effectiveleadership in international affairs. Most importantly, the relationship between power,leadership and hegemony will be outlined. It is argued that the connection betweenleadership and hegemony is one of co-constitution. Leadership is necessarily based onhegemony, while hegemony can only be sustained through leadership. Furthermore, it willbe shown that both leadership and hegemony are essentially political in character, whereaspower has no such insinuation but has to be translated into leadership and hegemonythrough discursive means. Finally, the analysis asks for the preconditions of leadership inEast Asia, using China’s and Japan’s roles in East Asian regionalism as an illustration.

Dirk Nabers is Professor of International Political Sociology at the University of Kiel,Germany.

Introduction

‘(New) regional powers’ such as Brazil, China, India and South Africa havebecome ubiquitous as a topic in the global media as well as in the social sciences.1

Sooner or later, it is argued far and wide, these economies will outclass those ofthe currently richest countries in the world.2 All too often, however, it seems as iftheir future political clout is directly inferred from their growing economiccapabilities. This is particularly conspicuous in the case of China. While theUS-based Time magazine had already in the mid-1990s presaged that it is high timefor ‘Waking Up to the Next Superpower’,3 the German weekly Der Spiegel augursthe ‘Birth of a New Global Power’.4 In China’s neighbouring countries in EastAsia, it is the People’s Republic’s growing demand of resources on the world

1 For a thorough discussion of the concept of ‘(new) regional powers’, see Detlef Nolte’s contributionto this special section.

2 Most prominently and persistently, Goldman Sachs has maintained that the BRICs, which includeBrazil, Russia, India and China, will surpass the world’s biggest economies in due course. See, forexample, ‘The BRICs Nifty 50: The EM & DM Winners’, Goldman Sachs (4 November 2009), seealso, Andrew F. Cooper, Agata Antkiewicz, and Timothy M. Shaw, ‘Economic Size Trumps AllElse? Lessons from BRICSAM’, CIGI Working Paper No. 12 (2006).

3 TIME (25 March 1996).4 Der Spiegel (2004).

Review of International Studies (2010), 36, 931–949 � 2010 British International Studies Associationdoi:10.1017/S0260210510001373

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market, its escalating share in intra-regional imports and increasing attraction offoreign direct investment (FDI) that is routinely emphasised.5 No surprise, highdomestic growth rates over more than two decades have led observers to theconclusion that China will be the next superpower in the region and beyond.6 Someof these observers recommend that other countries might serve their own purposeswell by changing their policies from balancing to bandwagoning China.7

In contrast, it is maintained in the following that this kind of reasoningobscures the conceptual distinction between mere power and actual leadership ininternational politics. The article asks for the broader conditions of effectiveleadership of states in international politics. As a first step, different theoreticalstrands will be presented as to the requirements of leadership in internationalpolitics. Referring to Steven Lukes’8 three-dimensional view of power as astarting-point for the following discussion, it will be maintained that leadership –in contrast to brute power – is a genuinely political phenomenon that is effectiveand sustainable when foreign elites acknowledge the leader’s vision of internationalorder and internalise it as their own. It is often disputed and constituted by sharedideas about self, other, and the world, relying on the inter-subjective internalisationof ideas, norms, and identities. Ultimately, the exercise of leadership takes placewithin the broader structural confines of what will be conceptualised as ‘discursivehegemony’ in this article.

To exemplify the value of the developed framework for the study of (new)regional powers such as Brazil, China, India, or South Africa, the analysis inquiresas to the prerequisites of effective leadership in international institution-building inEast Asia, using China’s and Japan’s roles in East Asian regionalism as anillustration. It will be argued that while China has taken several initiatives inpropelling regional free trade agreements (FTA) and economic development of theIndochina region, Japan has promoted region-wide institutions such as ASEAN+3and the East Asian Summit, playing the role of ‘Asia’s odd man out’9 quiteproductively. Sino-Japanese antagonism and aspirations for leadership on bothsides have, in consequence, been a major source for structural change in the region,resulting in a dynamic interplay between bilateral FTA and multilateral institu-tions.

It should be noted at the outset that the kind of argument developed here is inneed of substantial theoretical elaboration, since leadership theory in IR still lacksa coherent approach. The bulk of what follows is thus theoretical in nature. Twointellectual sources are of primary relevance in this context: Firstly, new theoriesof leadership developed in political theory, management studies, and psychologywill be employed to outline a general concept of leadership that seeks todifferentiate between power and leadership. In that context, it will be emphasisedthat ‘to lead’ is not a fixed state of being but rather an act that has to be unveiled

5 Asahi Shinbun (31 December 2009).6 See, for example, Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict With China (New

York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); see also Avery Goldstein, ‘Great Expectations: Interpreting China’sArrival’, International Security, 22:3 (Winter 1997/1998), pp. 36–73.

7 Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Security Relations with China since 1989: From balancing to bandwagoning?(London: RoutledgeCurzon, 200[???]).

8 Steven Lukes, Power: A Radical View (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 2005) [1974]).9 Mark Beeson and Yoshimatsu Hidetaka, ‘Asia’s Odd Men Out: Australia, Japan and the Politics of

Regionalism’, CSGR Working Paper Series No. 196/06 (March 2006).

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by looking at political processes. This perspective seems necessary as traditionalaccounts of International Relations (IR) theory, such as various versions ofrationalism, centre on the distribution of material capabilities, while constructivistand post-structuralist approaches in IR have only recently started to approachprocess-related concepts such as power and hegemony in international politics.Secondly, post-structuralist insights about how a leader becomes a leader will bedelineated, or – to use the term most aptly developed by Ernesto Laclau and hisnumerous followers in the Essex School of Discourse Theory – how a hegemonicdiscourse develops and what role a ‘leader’ can play within the structural confinesof hegemony. As will be shown, leadership is necessarily based on discursivehegemony, while hegemony can only be sustained through leadership.

After delineating the three relevant concepts and their interrelatedness in thenext section, an integrated model of power, leadership, and hegemony will bedeveloped. Sino-Japanese antagonism and the two countries’ quest for leadershipin regional institution-building serves to exemplify the argument. The conclusionwill summarise the most important implications for research on regional powersinstitutionalisation.

1. Power, leadership and hegemony

1.1 Lukes’ three dimensional view of power

Power and leadership are all too often conflated in the relevant literature.10 Thedominant power definitions in IR still rest on strictly material definitions, whileleadership can be regarded as an epiphenomenon. To transcend this materialistview, Steven Lukes’11 famous definition of the term power provides us with ahelpful starting point. With Lukes, power has to be understood as having threedimensions:12 First, power is exercised if A can get B to do something that B wouldnot otherwise do. This dimension refers to the means of securing another person’scompliance in favour of one’s own interests. The second face of power looks at thede facto power of the members within a group in the decision making process.Lukes maintains that the rules within any decision making system naturally biasthe mobilisaation of resources for competing for agenda formation against someindividuals and groups versus others. It incorporates coercion, influence, authority,force and manipulation, and can also rest on the suppression of collectivedecisions, so-called non-decisions which aim at keeping issues off the agenda. Thesecond dimension can also be called the covert dimension or the restrictive face ofpower. Third, a state exercises power over another state by influencing, shaping ordetermining his wants, beliefs and understandings about the world. Lukes arguesthat power is most effective in its unobservable form, that is, when willingcompliance to the powerful is secured by means of influencing others ‘perceptions,

10 According to different versions realism, power capabilities are the determining factor of states’choices. For an overview, see Brian C. Schmidt, ‘Competing Realist Conceptions of Power’, inMillennium: Journal of International Studies, 33 (2005) pp. 523–49.

11 Lukes, Power: A Radical View.12 Ibid., chap. 1.

Power, leadership and hegemony 933

cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existingorder of things’.13 Subtle forms of power, such as the control of information andthe process of socialisation, fall into this category. It is an essentially social viewof power, which may involve thought control and the indoctrination of people’swants. As Lukes14 has maintained, power does not necessarily have to be exercised.As a capacity, it can be turned into leadership, hegemony, or domination,15 butthis is not necessarily so.

In the last two decades, various realist or neo-institutionalist accounts in IRhave attempted to transcend the rationalist IR perspective. Recent examples ofnovel perspectives on international institutions include Peter M. and Ernst B. Haas,who argue from a pragmatic constructivist standpoint that international institu-tions might indeed be ‘wilful actors on their own, but are also the venue in whichreflexive new practices and policies develop’.16 From a realist perspective, MichaelWilliams17 demands a return to the theory’s anthropological foundations and afocus on the constructive relational processes of Self and Other. His work is anintriguing deconstruction of – in his view – false dichotomies between classicalrealism and critical and post-structuralist thought. It is, however, questionablewhether the proposition of such a kind of richer realism does not put the wholerealist project into question, or – as Stefano Guzzini18 has shown – whetherdefining the core of realism does not mean abandoning a lot of what IR has to saytoday.

Writing about bargaining power in multilateral negotiations, for example,Gerald Schneider complains that ‘[it] is, moreover, nearly impossible to obtainindicators that sufficiently approximate the demanding concepts advocated bysocial constructivism and related approaches’.19 Sheer brute power has not onlybeen more fascinating for IR theorists than complex social relationships, it has alsobeen easier to handle conceptually. As Lukes’ definition exceeds even mostconstructivist approaches in terms of complexity, its manifold methodologicalimplications might hinder many scholars from transcending traditional IR ration-alism. In essence, Lukes’ work is a forceful critique of methodological individu-alism and behaviourism. In the following, it will thus be maintained, contrary tothe rationalist position, that successful leadership in international affairs must takeLukes’ three-dimensional view of power into consideration and develop it further.Power has to be internalised in the inter-subjective understandings of relevantactors. Ultimately, this is the basis of what will later in this article be called ahegemonic project.

13 Ibid., pp. 11.14 Ibid., pp. 12.15 It should be noted at this point that domination is not the central concern of this article.16 Peter M. Haas and Ernst B. Haas, ‘Pragmatic Constructivism and the Study of International

Institutions’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 3 (2002) pp. 573–601.17 Michael C. Williams, The Realist Tradition and the Limits of International Relations (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2005).18 Stefano Guzzini, ‘The Different Worlds of Realism in International Relations’, Millennium: Journal

of International Studies, 1 (2001) pp. 111–21.19 Gerald Schneider, ‘Capacity and Concessions: Bargaining Power in Multilateral Negotiations’,

Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 3 (2005) pp. 665–90, at p. 681.

934 Dirk Nabers

(a)1.2 Leadership and competition

Emphasising the necessity of a more process-based conception of power, a secondquestion to be addressed here refers to the conceptual distinction between powerand leadership. What is it that differentiates leadership from power? Why does oneleader lead and not another? What material capabilities does one need to becomea leader? What characterises the relationship between leaders and followers? Todate, James MacGregor Burns’ definition of the concept of leadership is still themost sophisticated and functional, as it puts the complex relationship betweenleaders and followers at centre stage. It involves persuasion, exchange, andtransformation. It is a form of power, but it implies mutuality. To quote Burns:

Leadership over human beings is exercised when persons with certain motives and purposesmobilize, in competition or conflict with others, institutional, political, psychological, and otherresources so as to arouse, engage, and satisfy the motives of followers. This is done in orderto realize goals mutually held by both leaders and followers.20

What is significant in this definition is that leadership is competitive; potentialleaders have to appeal to the motives of potential followers. It must hence bedistinguished from domination and coercion. Leaders might be able to getpotential followers to see the world through their eyes. In contrast to mere powerholders, leaders are effective because they induce change. Leadership, again incontrast to brute power, is inseparable from the wants and needs of followers, butthese wants and needs may be changed through social interaction.

In sum, several dimensions which make it possible to link leadership withtraditional concepts of power can be extracted from the literature:21 Firstly,leadership must essentially be conceptualised as an activity. Brute power does notnecessarily entail leadership, nor does power always help to achieve the desiredoutcomes, as Christopher Layne elucidates quite appositely with regard to the US:‘There is a paradox between the magnitude of American power and Washington’sinability to use that power to always get what it wants in international politics [. . .]hegemony is not omnipotence’.22 Instead, leaders have to make decisions, gatherresources, use incentives and threats, formulate visions, and build coalitions. Thismight be called a form of power, but surely transcends materialist accounts.Secondly, leadership requires an institutionalised context. It is seldom ad hoc. Onthe contrary, it rests on continuity, stability, and repetition. In many cases,potential leaders actively engage in institution-building to create the environmentin which leadership can more effectively be exercised. Leaders must pay attentionto different institutionalised contexts at the same time, be it at the bilateral,regional, or global level. From this follows, thirdly that leaders act underconstraints when they use their power; they are not entirely free to choose their

20 James MacGregor Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 18, emphasis inoriginal.

21 Especially Burns, Leadership; also Nannerl O. Keohane, ‘On Leadership’, Perspectives on Politics, 4(2005) pp. 705–22; Stefan Schirm, ‘Leaders in Need of Followers: Emerging Powers in GlobalGovernance’, European Journal of International Relations (2009); Richard J. Samuels, Machiavelli’schildren: Leaders and their legacies in Italy and Japan. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press,2003); and Oran R. Young, ‘Political Leadership and Regime Formation: On the Development ofInstitutions in International Society’, International Organization, 3 (1991) pp. 281–308.

22 Christopher Layne, ‘Impotent Power? Re-examining the nature of America’s hegemonic power’, TheNational Interest (1 September 2006), pp. 41–2.

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options, for their actions are shaped by followers and by circumstances to achanging degree. As Burns emphasises in his groundbreaking monograph, leader-ship is always relational:23 Acting under constraints requires coalition-building.Subordinates are enlisted to fulfil certain roles in the leadership game; tasks aredelegated. Finally, leadership has a normative dimension. It plays an imperative rolein tackling internationally relevant problems such as terrorism, trade facilitation,climate change, humanitarian aid, and institutional cooperation in general. Strongleadership seems to be essential for guiding and directing a group of countriestowards collective action. Members of an international institution will delegatefunctions of agenda management, brokerage, and mediation to more powerfulcountries. Leaders might have the capacity to solve collective-action problems thatmight otherwise paralyse decentralised negotiations.24

Several authors in IR theory have tried to develop a more comprehensive,interactive model of leadership and power in the last two decades. Oran Young hasexplored the concept of leadership from a behavioural perspective, differentiatingbetween three forms of leadership – structural leadership, entrepreneurial leader-ship, and intellectual leadership – proposing a way to understand leadership ininternational bargaining that can be of great help when analysing states as leadersin international affairs. Young’s contribution with regard to the role of leadershipin international politics is considerable. He makes three basic arguments: Firstly,leadership is essentially relational; structural leadership aims to translate relativepower capabilities into bargaining leverage by making use of material threats andpromises. Forming effective coalitions can be crucial in this process. Secondly, aleader will be able to act as an agenda setter, showing innovative solutions toovercome deadlocks or operating as a broker to gain support for salient solutions.Thirdly, leadership is a reflective process, necessitating a deliberative process ofexchanging arguments. It implies the ‘power of ideas to shape the intellectualcapital available to those engaged in institutional bargaining’.25

In a similar vein, Ikenberry and Kupchan argue that there is a need for areflexive, discourse-based conception of power, allowing for a complex reformu-lation of interests and identities.26 Acquiescence is the result of the socialisation ofleaders in secondary nations. Elites in secondary states buy into and internalisenorms that are articulated by the hegemon and therefore pursue policies consistentwith the hegemon’s notion of international order.27 While this argument resemblesLukes’ three-dimensional view of power, it does not answer the question how toengage potentials followers in the debating and contesting of ideas and meanings.In an intriguing analytical step, Burns distinguished transactional from transfor-mational leadership. While ‘leaders approach followers with an eye to exchangingone thing for another’28 in the former case, the follower is more fully engaged inthe latter scenario: ‘The result of transforming leadership is a relationship ofmutual simulation and elevation that converts followers into leaders and may

23 Burns, Leadership, chap. 1.24 Jonas Tallberg, Leadership and Negotiation in the EU (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

2006).25 Young, ‘Political Leadership’, p. 300.26 G. John Ikenberry and Charles A. Kupchan, ‘Socialization and Hegemonic Power,’ International

Organization (Summer 1990), pp. 283–315, at p. 283.27 Ibid.28 Burns, Leadership, p. 4.

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convert leaders into moral agents’.29 As we will see, it is in this kind of elevationof followers into leaders that the theoretical strands of leadership theory andLukes’ three-dimensional view of power converge. Leadership is always contestedby challenges from those who are left out of what we will call a ‘hegemonicproject’, and sometimes from those who find themselves in a subordinate positionto the leader. The central question of the next section refers to the strategies thatactors employ to present their particular visions as universal, so that they becomeacceptable to relevant others. In many respects, this understanding of powertranscends the three-dimensional view. While interests can be potentially identifiedand attributed to certain actors in Lukes’ framework, hegemony refers to a formof power that is less actor-related. Instead, it is deeply implanted in the structureof meaningful practices of a society.

(b)1.3 Leadership and hegemony

In this section, the concept of leadership will be linked with the post-structuralistnotion of hegemony. Both concepts refer to the essence of politics. Theirconceptual foundation consists in the highly contingent and incomplete characterof society – be it at the domestic or the international level. In this perspective,politics is about the competition of different, particular, groups for universalrepresentation. Political leadership is the sphere of the decision in and for a society,in that it transmits and disseminates certain particular meanings of the social asuniversals. Political theorist Ernesto Laclau calls this hegemonisation or hegemonicuniversality. In his view, hegemony is first and foremost about the tension betweenuniversality and particularity. It has to be distinguished from domination, whichdenotes the (often juridical) command that is exercised by a state or government.30

Rather, as we will see in the following, (democratic) politics has to be understoodas contestation and interrogation between competing social logics.

The concept of hegemony as developed here is not to be conflated with theconcept of hegemony put forward by hegemonic stability theory in the field of IR.31

Rather, it originates in Antonio Gramsci’s post-Marxist theory. While StevenLukes relies heavily on Gramsci’s work on hegemony to develop his three-dimensional view of power,32 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe – in theirseminal work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy33 – reformulated Gramsci’s notionof hegemony in a way that takes discourse as constitutive for politics.

Most crucially for our purposes, the social structure in which leader-followerrelationships are embedded is defined as discourse. This does not deny the

29 Ibid.30 Ernesto Laclau, ‘Identity and hegemony: The Role of universality in the constitution of political

logics’, in Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek (eds), Contingency, Hegemony, Univer-sality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London: Verso, 2000), p. 47.

31 For a broad discussion of hegemonic stability theory, see Sandra Destradi’s contribution to thisspecial issue; see also the classic critique by Susan Strange, ‘The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony’,International Organization, 4 (1987) pp. 551–74.

32 Lukes, Power, pp. 7–8, 49–50, 144–5, 152.33 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. Towards a Radical

Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985).

Power, leadership and hegemony 937

argument that power may rely on certain material circumstances. However,whether atomic weapons are constructed as a threat or as a nuclear umbrella toprotect a certain country depends upon the nature of the discourse in which theyare embedded. Meanings are entirely constituted by discursive practices. Thequestion is which meaning is able to prevail in the end. The notion of hegemonyrests on the assumption that any discourse tries to dominate the field ofdiscursivity. Power and the ability of regional powers to transform their materialcapabilities into leadership will thus depend on an actor’s ability to present his ownparticular worldview as compatible with the communal aims. This works best in asituation of disintegration and indeterminacy in articulations of different identi-ties,34 or in a situation of dislocation. While crisis is a constant politicalphenomenon, the same is true for societal dislocation. As Norval maintains, ‘if thestructure is dislocated und thus incomplete, an intervention by a subject is neededto re-suture it’.35 This is the logical basis of all leadership, and basically of allpolitics. Previous political logics are put into question by a crisis, while more andmore actors have to open themselves up to innovative discourses, and hegemonicstrategies can be successful. A crucial question, then, is what a political project hasto look like to be successful. Why does one prospective regional country carrymore weight than another in assuming the role of a leader? To answer thisquestion, let us scrutinise the hegemonic process more closely. The transition fromone dominant discourse to another is a highly complex venture, encompassing afundamental reconstruction of existing subject positions. As an ideal type, it can besummed up as follows:36

(1) At the beginning there is a crisis, visible through a disintegration of popularidentifications with institutionalised subject positions and political imaginaries.This could either be an external catastrophe such as a major war; a gravefinancial or economic crisis; humanitarian catastrophe or terrorist assault; ormerely a necessary political decision in ‘undecidable terrain’ that might weakendominant discourses, that is, prevailing concepts of reality, opening up culturalborders.

(2) Competing political forces will attempt to hegemonise the political space, thatis, to exercise leadership in that situation. Alternative discourses start tocompete in their interpretation of the crisis and their attempt to resolve the‘lack’ triggered by the crisis. Empty signifiers like ‘Asia’, ‘justice’, ‘community’,and ‘order’ function as horizons, as a ‘surface of inscription’ for a number ofspecific political articulations.

(3) Sooner or later, one predominant interpretation will evolve – often visible in thestrengthening of communal bonds – which institutes the framework thatdetermines what action is appropriate, and what action is inappropriate, to end

34 Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, pp. 7, 13; Ernesto Laclau, Politics andIdeology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: Verso, 1977), p. 103; ErnestoLaclau, On Populist Reason (London: Verso, 2005), p. 122.

35 Aletta J. Norval, ‘Democratic decisions and the question of universality: Rethinking recentapproaches’, in Simon Critchley and Oliver Marchart (eds), Laclau. A Critical Reader (London/NewYork: Routledge, 2004), pp. 113–22, 142.

36 See also, Anna Marie Smith, Laclau and Mouffe. The radical democratic imaginary (London/NewYork: Routledge, 1998), pp. 164–8.

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the predicament. This dominant interpretative frame is due to its linkages withresidual institutions.37

(4) In due course, these identifications will become more and more routinised. Thediscourse becomes what Laclau calls an imaginary: ‘not one among otherobjects but an absolute limit which structures a field of intelligibility and is thusthe condition of possibility for the emergence of any object’.38 As it becomesan imaginary, the discourse will generate new kinds of political action along thelines of the dominant interpretative framework.39 Specific cultural forms suchas norms, rules, (political) institutions, conventions, ideologies, customs, andlaws are all influenced by this process. This is an exercise of power in its purestform, as it categorically excludes alternative institutional frameworks.

It has to be emphasised that this is an ideal-type version of the hegemonicprocess. An ‘international order’ is never fully constituted and hegemonicinterventions are possible at any time. Hegemony-based leadership is issue specific,culturally embedded, historically contingent, and never to be understood as aonce-and-for-all decision.40 To be sure, leadership requires some kind of hegemonicprocess. It has to be conceded, though, that the battle between discourses tobecome the leading interpretative structure also reveals the configuration of powerrelations in a given historical moment. It would be naïve to think that the materialcapabilities of regional powers do not play their part in a discourse. However, theydo not pre-determine the path towards leadership. For example, Singapore – notJapan or China, as materialist IR research would probably suggest – took the leadin East Asia with regard to bi- (keep as hyphen) and multilateral tradeliberalisation after the Asian Crisis. Power is uneven,41 not stable or static, but isrearticulated continuously.42

To make this clearer, we have to introduce Laclau’s notion of credibility. The idealtype of a hegemonic process presented above emphasises that one predominantinterpretation will evolve due to its linkages with residual institutions. While leader-ship has to be based on certain political traditions that subjects identify with, thisargument will lose weight with the extent of the crisis.43 The more far-reaching thedislocation of a discourse is, the fewer principles will be still in place after the crisis.While colonialism worked on a historical ground that had been already set up for itand drew on established interpretative frameworks of a ‘leading race’, ‘subhumanbeings’, xenophobia and imperialistic nationalism, it was still possible to terminate.

37 Ernesto Laclau, New Reflections of the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p. 64; AlettaJ. Norval, Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse (London: Verso, 1996), p. 96.

38 Laclau, New Reflections, p. 64.39 Cf. also Laclau, Politics and Ideology.40 Leonard Williams, ‘Abundance, lack, and identity’, Journal of Political Ideologies (June 2007),

pp. 109–26, 119.41 As Ernesto Laclau, ‘Identity and hegemony: The role of universality in the constitution of political

logics’, in Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoy Žižek (eds), Contingency, Hegemony,Universality. Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London/New York: Verso, 2000), pp. 11–43, 54,aptly put it, ‘A power which is total is no power at all’. Lukes (2001 [1974]) offers the classicalformulation of this view.

42 Smith, Laclau and Mouffe, p. 57; Judith Butler, ‘Restaging the Universal: Hegemony and the limitsof formalism’, in Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoy Žižek (eds), Contingency, Hegemony,Universality. Contemporary Dialogues on the Left (London/New York: Verso, 2000), pp. 11–43, 14;Laclau, On Populist Reason, p. 115.

43 Laclau, ‘Identity and hegemony’, p. 82; see also, Laclau, New Reflections, p. 66.

Power, leadership and hegemony 939

In a nutshell, hegemony is indispensable for the exercise of leadership, for itcircumscribes the domain of intelligibility in which leadership processes occur. Bothhegemony and leadership are essentially political; both rest on power, but notnecessarily on the observable form of material power alone. Leadership must hencenot be misunderstood as dominance or coercion. It is to Laclau’s merit to havereintroduced the term hegemony in contemporary debates concerning problems ofpolitical power and authority. Hegemony means nothing more than the discursivestruggle between political actors over the assertion of their particular representa-tions of the world as having a universal significance. Ultimately, it is only throughhegemony that leadership can be established.

(c)1.4 The case of East Asia

It is argued here that any hegemonic process can be traced along the lines of theideal-type model delineated in the previous section: (1) starting with a particularpolitical crisis (of lesser or greater extent), (2) moving to the competition betweendifferent political forces to hegemonise the political field and (3) the acceptance ofa certain interpretative framework of identification (actual hegemony), to (4) itseventual routinisation and political institutionalisation. As illustrated in Figure 1,this final act of institutionalisation causes feed-back effects on the discursiverepresentation of the crisis, new interpretative frames start to compete, and politicscontinues. Theoretically, this circle never ends; if it did, politics would have reachedits final purpose. Most significantly, however, it is possible to analyse differentkinds of leadership processes on the basis of this framework. In the East Asiancase, which can be drawn on to illustrate the argument, it was the Asian financialcrisis that triggered new complex correlations between power, leadership, andhegemony. In the years following the crisis, a dialectic and fundamentallycontingent quest for leadership developed, mainly involving China and Japan, butalso including some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations(ASEAN)44 and South Korea.

Deeper integration and community building can be identified as the dominantinterpretative framework used to overcome the predicament, with the institution-alisation of ASEAN+345 and the East Asia Summit (EAS)46 representing theinstitutional materialisation of the hegemonic process.47 In brief, the developmentcan be recapitulated as follows:

Crisis

The Asian crisis is widely considered as the primary source of a new Sino-Japanesestruggle for leadership in the region.48 The resulting institutionalisation of the region

44 Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar,Cambodia.

45 The members of ASEAN plus China, Japan and South Korea.46 ASEAN+3 plus Australia, New Zealand and India.47 Dirk Nabers, ‘ASEAN+3: The Failure of Global Governance and the Construction of Regional

Institutions’, in Stefan A. Schirm (ed.), New Rules for Global Markets. Public and Private Governancein the World Economy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 215–34.

48 Especially Christopher M. Dent (ed.), China, Japan and Regional Leadership in East Asia(Northampton MA: Edward Elgar, 2008); Christopher M. Dent (ed.), ‘What region to lead?

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was successful due to its linkage with an ongoing debate over the institutional shapeof the region. The seeds for a genuine regional cooperation process combining boththe northeast and southeast Asian sub-regions had already been sown by MalaysianPrime Minister Mahathir in his proposal for an East Asian Economic Grouping(EAEG) in the early 1990s. Although the initiative was instantaneously torpedoed bynon-East Asian countries, it lingered behind the scenes and was reinvigorated afterthe crisis.49 This finding offers preliminary, though still provisional support for acentral theoretical argument outlined above: The ideal type cycle developed in theprevious section emphasised that one predominant interpretation will evolve due toits linkages with residual institutions. Put differently, if the new political projectclashes with the ‘ensemble of sedimented practices constituting the normativeframework of a certain society’,50 it will likely be rejected.

A second argument put forward above refers to the normative dimension ofleadership: Leadership is essential in politics in general, and in crises situations inparticular. In the East Asia case, this argument has gained salience in the yearsafter the crisis. It was through increasing competition between the old and the neweconomic powerhouses of East Asia that ideas of regionalism gained newmomentum. While some observers argue that ‘China and Japan possess the mostsignificant “regional leader actor” capacity in East Asia’,51 these two countries alsoplayed a major role in the single stages of our theoretical model (interpretation ofthe crisis, competing interpretations, hegemony, institutionalisation).

Although East Asian and Southeast Asian countries for the first time operatedas a unified actor in the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), which was established in1996, significant collaboration first evolved during the crisis. The domino effect ofthat financial quandary highlighted the ‘reality of the inter-connection of East-Asian’s Economies’.52 Interdependence and external shock are widely seen as themain trigger for alternative discourses on regional cooperation and region-building.The most prominent voices in this discourse emanated from Beijing and Tokyo,53

and in the years that followed, an intensive quest for leadership in differentpolitical fields started to develop.

All in all, the financial crisis compelled many Asian countries to re-evaluatetheir place in the world. ‘The crisis has stimulated a new sense of East Asianregionalism and brought the countries closer together’, says Tommy Koh,chairman of the Institute of Policy Studies in Singapore.54 Early one, Chinesepresident Jiang Zemin reassured neighbouring countries that his government would

Developments in East Asian regionalism and questions of regional leadership’, in Christopher M.Dent (ed.), China, Japan and Regional Leadership in East Asia (Northampton MA: Edward Elgar,2008), pp. 3–36.

49 Dirk Nabers, ‘The Social Construction of International Institutions: The Case of ASEAN+3’,International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 1 (2003), S. 111–34.

50 Laclau, ‘Identity and hegemony’, p. 82; see also, Laclau, New Reflections, p. 66.51 Dent (ed.), ‘What region to lead?’, p. 3.52 Rodolfo C. Severino, ‘An Emerging East Asian Community Reality or Mirage?’, Keynote Address

at the Regional Conference on Common Currency for East Asia: Dream or Reality (5 August 1999).53 Tokyo’s interpretation of the crisis can be seen as exemplary in this context: ‘If we are lax in these

efforts towards integration, we may invite more region-wide upheavals similar to the currency crisis.It is therefore important to understand how and in what sense this region, including Japan, is acommunity with common fate’. See MOFA (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan), ‘Japan-ASEAN Summit Meeting – The significance of the Prime Minister’s visit’ (December 1997),{http://www.mofa.go.jp} 25 July 2000.

54 Financial Times (13 May 2001).

Power, leadership and hegemony 941

‘adopt a positive attitude towards strengthening financial cooperation in Asia and[be] ready to participate in discussions on relevant mechanism for cooperation’ andpromised that certain ‘practical moves on our part will promote the developmentof economic and technological cooperation as well as trade and investmentliberalization in the Asia-Pacific region’.55 Similarly, Japan announced it wouldplay an active leadership role to counter the crisis.56 The starting signal was givenfor a quest for leadership in the region that turned out to be the dominant featureof East Asian international relations in the years to come.

Competition

It was argued above that, firstly, competing political forces will attempt tohegemonise the political space to exercise leadership, and, secondly, that leadershipis always relational. Leaders have to please the motive bases of potential followersto be successful. Sticks and carrots play their part in such an endeavour, but they,too, are part of a discourse over the right political path to follow. Such a discoursestarted immediately with the outbreak of financial turmoil in East Asia in theSummer of 1997. At the height of the crisis, Japan came up with an initiative toset up an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF), which was not realised, though, due toopposition from the West, especially the USA. But it was also immediately rejectedby other Asian countries, most loudly by China. Contending that such aninstitution would be redundant given the presence of the IMF and that it wouldfoster a split between Asia and North America, the proposal was buried for thetime being. However, Japan subsequently announced bilateral assistance plans suchas the New Miyazawa Plan, worth $30 billion, and special yen loans, amountingto 650 billion yen.57 Consequently, ASEAN members seemed to uniformlyappreciate assistance by the biggest economy, as can be seen from remarks by AliAlatas, former Foreign Minister of Indonesia:

I look forward to its [Japan’s] playing an important role in our common endeavours tosoften the social impact of the financial and economic crisis upon our peoples, andeventually to overcome that crisis altogether.58

55 FMPRC, ‘Speech by President Jiang Zemin of the People’s Republic of China at the 5th APECInformal Leadership Meeting’ (25 November 1997), {http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt/zyjh/t24914.htm} accessed on 10 June 2009.

56 To quote foreign minister Obuchi: ‘As the largest economy in Asia, Japan feels a responsibility,despite its own very difficult situation, to do everything it can to help its East Asian friends throughthis time of economic trial. To date, we have contributed, both in international efforts led by IMFand in bilateral programs, a total of about 37 billion dollars -a sum that far exceeds the assistancefrom any extra-regional country. We will continue to exercise the leadership to support the EastAsian countries in cooperation with the international community. We also intend to tailor our effortsto address the needs of the region’s less developed countries hit by the economic difficulties’. MOFA(The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan), ‘Statement by Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi on Japanand East Asia: Outlook for the New Millennium’ (4 May 1998), {http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/announce/1998/5/980504.html} accessed on 9 June 2009.

57 Japan Times (14 July 2001).58 DFA Indonesia (Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia), ‘Remarks by H.E. Mr. Ali

Alatas, Minister of Foreign Affairs’, Republic of Indonesia (28 January 1999), {http://www.dfa-deplu.go.id} accessed on 10 September 2001.

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It becomes obvious that leadership is inseparable from the wants and needs offollowers. Leadership is about giving and taking in specific situation, and differentforms of power and leadership are required in different situations. ConsideringJapan’s economic stagnation during the 1990s, China has also been deemed moresignificant in generating regional economic growth. However, a widespread concernhas persisted in Southeast Asia that investment flows into China may reduce thoseinto the ASEAN states and that China will aim at expanding its leadership role inthe region.59 As Alice Ba has pointed out, similar development paths do notautomatically lead to a greater receptiveness to another’s message or even to theformation of a collective identity.60 To reassure potential followers, China time andagain tried to downplay its economic size, emphasising the spirit of cooperationand mutual trust that ASEAN expects in its relations with Beijing. In his keynotespeech to the Boao Forum in April 2002, Premier Zhu Rongji underlined thatChina’s growing economy posed no threat to Asia, and stressed that China wasready to work with its neighbours to build ‘a thriving new Asia’.61

Subsequently, both China and Japan have tried to produce innovativeproposals to overcome the financial predicament. In the first years after the crisisbroke out, Japan quickly embraced a leadership role that included materialincentives as well as vision and entrepreneurial skills.62 By the turn of the century,Japan had contributed some US $80 billion in financial aid to overcome thecrisis,63 while China has opted to intensify trade relations with ASEAN.64 As anindication of the increasing readiness to accommodate the region materially, in2001 China offered ASEAN to open up its sensitive agricultural market. At thesame time, China and ASEAN agreed to implement a free trade agreement by thisyear, which encouraged Japan to come up with a broader plan for an East AsianFTA in 2002.65 Mounting rivalry can be seen as a source for structural change inthis context.66

There are other examples of intense rivalry that can be quoted to underline theargument made here. The Mekong River region is one such instance.67 WhileBeijing hoped that the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area would be supported byinfrastructural links between China and the ASEAN states and indicated inNovember 2000 at the informal ASEAN+3 summit in Singapore that it would fund

59 For a critical discussion, see Joseph Yu-shek Cheng, ‘The ASEAN-China Free Trade Area: genesisand implications’, Australian Journal of International Relations, 2 (2004) pp. 257–77.

60 Alice D. Ba, ‘Who’s socializing whom? Complex engagement in Sino-ASEAN engagement’, ThePacific Review, 2 (2006) pp. 157–79, 168.

61 South China Morning Post (13 April 2002).62 Nabers, ‘ASEAN+3’; Takashi Terada, ‘Thorny Progress in the Institutionalization of ASEAN+3:

Deficient China-Japan Leadership and the ASEAN Divide for Regional Governance’, KeioUniversity Policy and Governance Working Paper Series No. 49 (2004).

63 For an overview, see MOFA (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan), ‘Asian Economic Crisis andJapan’s Contribution’ (October 2000), {http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/asia/crisis0010.html}accessed on 10 August 2007.

64 Daijin Peng, ‘Invisible Linkages: A Regional Perspective of East Asian Political Economy’,International Studies Quarterly, 3 (2002) pp. 423–47.

65 Julie Gilson, ‘Complex regional multilateralism: “strategising” Japan’s responses to Southeast Asia’,The Pacific Review, 1 (2004) pp. 71–94.

66 John Ravenhill, ‘Fighting Irrelevance: an economic community “with ASEAN characteristics”’, ThePacific Review, 4 (2008) pp. 469–88, 469.

67 For China’s role, see Evelyn Goh, ‘Developing the Mekong: Regionalism and regional security inChina-Southeast Asian relations’, IISS: Adelphi Papers, 387 (2006).

Power, leadership and hegemony 943

the construction of a Lancang-Mekong development project in Myanmar andLaos, Japan proposed two big projects for the countries in the region. One wassupposed to facilitate the use of high-technology wireless tags to ease trade, and theother is advancing know-how on electrical power development.68

As a result of these numerous competing proposals, followership in East Asiaalso remained divided, with some countries following Japan, some others support-ing China. For example, a Vietnamese government official commented that Japan’svision of an Asian-wide FTA seemed to be ‘all show and little substance’ and thatits main rationale was to counter the FTA idea floated by China to ASEAN.69 Incontrast, some ASEAN members have underlined Japan’s continuing impact onSoutheast Asian development. As Singapore’s Trade and Industry Minister GeorgeYeo put it:

Japan is ASEAN’s largest source of imports and our second largest export market. Japan isone of ASEAN’s largest sources of FDI. Southeast Asia can be Japan’s alternativemanufacturing base to China. We have energy and other resources, which Japan needs. Thebenefits of an FTA between Japan and ASEAN would be of even greater benefit to SouthEast Asia than an ASEAN–China FTA in the short and medium term.70

Still, all these comments converge around the widespread acceptance of the idea ofregional cooperation as the dominant interpretative framework after the crisis. Itwill be shown in the next section that this interpretation gained ground to aconsiderable extent in the years that followed.

Dominant interpretation

As posited by the ideal-type cycle developed above, one predominant interpretationoften evolves – also due to its linkages with residual institutions – which institutesthe framework that determines what action is appropriate and what action isinappropriate to end the quandary. In the East Asian case, two factors seem to beof particular importance in this regard: Firstly, a dominant view quickly evolvedthat existing institutions like ASEAN, APEC and the IMF would not be able toclean up the mess; secondly, and related to the widespread criticism of the IMF,countries in the region consented on the opinion that a regional solution waspreferable to one that looked for help in the ‘West’. Hence, in the first phase ofthe institutionalisation process, political leaders in the region considered regional-ism as a form of self-help mechanism in times of crises,71 and this dominantinterpretation finally paved the way for the institutionalisation of the Asian idea.

With regards to ASEAN, it looked as if the institution’s self-esteem had alreadybeen low on the peak of the Asian crisis. It’s expansion in the 1990s to include sucheconomically weaker and democratically immature countries as Burma, Vietnam,Laos and Cambodia had undermined consensus.72 And the new diversity had made

68 Japan Times (27 September 2005).69 Business World (27 February 2002).70 ASEAN, ‘ASEAN’s Next Chapter’, By George Yeo (2002), {http://www.aseansec.org/13136.htm}

accessed on 22 March 2007.71 Nabers, ‘Social Construction’.72 Jürgen Rüland, ‘ASEAN and the Asian crisis: theoretical implications and practical consequences for

Southeast Asian regionalism’, The Pacific Review, 3 (2000) pp. 421–51, 434–38; Herman Joseph S.

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political goals more difficult to accomplish. Singapore, a founding member ofASEAN, thus repeatedly spoke publicly of the need to ‘leapfrog’ Southeast Asia tofurther economic growth and investment.73 What is more, ASEAN, together withSouth Korea, had been the most seriously affected by the financial crisis.Particularly important was the effect on Indonesia, which had in the past providedmuch of the guidance in the group. Paralysed by the severity of the economicturmoil, ASEAN contributed little to alleviating the crisis, which is commonly seenas diminishing greatly its value.

Concerning global institutions, critics have argued that the IMF’s demand fortaut monetary policy and structural reforms as a condition for its loans failed torestrain the crisis and actually aggravated it.74 Summarising the critique of theIMF during the Asian crisis for the Japanese government,75 Tran Van Tho arguesthat the institution is generally unable to contribute to the strengthening of thesupply side of the countries it supports, while its major task is stabilising themacro-economic environment. It can help by providing liquidity; yet, it fails whenasked for support for real economic activities such as export financing orbuttressing banks’ lending capability. Moreover, the financial resources of the IMFare rather limited since it is an institution with global responsibilities. He concludesthat:

In a word, there is a need for a new institution that plays a role complementary to theIMF’s. Such a framework cannot be established on a worldwide scale, though, becauseforming a consensus among a large number of countries will be difficult and requireconsiderable time. In addition, crises are often a matter of regional concern, and it isperhaps only natural that deeply interdependent countries should help each other out.76

Many analysts agreed that the IMF reform measures were too abrupt and tooharsh.77 Furthermore, deeper analysis of documents released by East Asiangovernments show widespread and open criticism. While the Japanese governmentpoints out that the ‘crises in Russia and Brazil demonstrated the need to look atthe risks inherent in the global financial system itself’,78 the South Koreangovernment directly addresses the need of ‘reforming the international financialarchitecture, and enhancing self-help and support mechanisms in East Asia throughthe ASEAN+3 framework’.79 Agreeing with this view, politicians such as theJapanese Finance Minister Miyazawa Kiichi and South Korean Prime MinisterKim Jong-pil had from the beginning encouraged an alternative approach tobringing the crisis to an end, advocating that the IMF is incapable of treating

Kraft, ‘ASEAN and intra-ASEAN relations: weathering the storm?’, The Pacific Review, 3 (2000)pp. 453–72, 454–7.

73 International Herald Tribune (26 July 2001).74 For a critique, see Business World (26 May 2000).75 Tran Van Tho, who is professor in the School of Sciences in Tokyo’s Waseda University, chaired

the Japan Forum on International Relations Inc. in compiling the report ‘Economic Globalizationand Options for Asia’.

76 Japan Times (14 July 2001).77 See, for example, J. Lewis, ‘Asian vs. international: Structuring an Asian Monetary Fund’, Harvard

Asian Quarterly, 4 (1999).78 MOFA (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan), ‘Report of the Mission for Revitalization of Asian

Economy: Living in Harmony with Asia in the Twenty-first Century’ (2001), {http://www.mofa.go.jp}accessed on 25 July 2001.

79 MOFAT (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea), ‘Joint Statement on EastAsia Cooperation’ (28 November 1999), {http://www.mofat.go.kr} accessed on 10 September 2001.

Power, leadership and hegemony 945

poorly performing Asian economies. Instead of IMF-lead reforms, especiallyMiyazawa promoted an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) as an alternative solutionto the financial upheaval.

The idea of a regional community featured prominently in the discourse andserved as a dominant interpretative framework to overcome the financial turmoil.The idea was very well reflected in a statement by Thai Deputy Prime MinisterSupachai: ‘We cannot rely on the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, or theInternational Monetary Fund but we must rely on regional cooperation’.80 Othersopenly called for the leadership of Japan81 or China.82 These findings suggest thatthe community idea had been widely accepted by the countries in the region at theturn of the century. In other words: The dominant interpretative framework thatwas set by the community discourse had become hegemonic. It is an act of powerbecause it makes the world intelligible: ‘The power of discourse to materialize itseffects is thus consonant with the power of discourse to circumscribe the domainof intelligibility.’83 In a final step, the discourse produces specific practices andinstitutions. It acquires material objectivity by becoming institutionally fixed.

Institutionalisation

The proposals put forward by Japan, China and other countries in the region afterthe crisis led to the institutionalisation of the Asian idea within the framework ofASEAN+3, comprising the ten members of the Association of Southeast AsianNations (ASEAN) plus China, Japan and South Korea. ASEAN+3 has developedrapidly since the outbreak of the crisis, which is a hint at the validity of one of thecentral arguments of this article, that is, leadership requires an institutionalisedcontext. As Chris Dent observes in his analysis of East Asian regionalism: ‘Forthere to be regional leadership, there must be some sort of coherent regional entityto lead.’84 Through continuous and repetitive leadership, institutionalisation isfurther strengthened. Although neither China nor Japan were able to control thefield of intelligibility in East Asia and among Asian governments completely, thecommunity idea has gained considerable ground after the Asian crisis, withSino-Japanese rivalry being its primary driving force. Institutionalised summitrycan in this sense further reinforce leader-follower relationships. In the region, aprocess of steady institutionalisation soon developed, including ministerial rounds,senior official meetings (SOM) and proposals to establish an East Asia Vision

80 Quoted in The Nation (10 June 2000).81 As Singapore Prime Minister put it: ‘If we can find a way for Japan to feel confident and

comfortable enough to have a free trade arrangement with China, then we can have an East AsianFree Trade Area which, of course, will the allow us to move toward and East Asian EconomicCommunity’. Quoted in Terada, ‘Thorny Progress’, p. 6.

82 On the occasion of the China-ASEAN summit meeting in January 2007, Philippine President GloriaMacapagal Arroyo emphasised she expects China to take the lead in East Asia: ‘We also look toChina to take the lead in promoting good neighborly relations and regional cooperation by handlingsensitive issues with surrounding countries in a matter that is guided by the spirit of equality, respect,consultation and mutual benefit’. International Herald Tribune (14 January 2007).

83 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (London/New York: Routledge,1993), p. 187.

84 Dent (ed.), ‘What region to lead?’, p. 3.

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Group. It was in Hanoi in December 1998 where the heads of state or governmentof the ASEAN members plus China, Japan and South Korea decided that regularmeetings be held among them. The next summit meetings took place in Manila inNovember 1999 and in Singapore in November of the following year. Othermeetings of the forum included those of the finance and foreign ministers of the13 countries.

The adoption of the so-called Chiang Mai initiative (CMI) in May 2000 set aframework for cooperation in the areas of capital-flow monitoring, self-help andsupport mechanisms, and international financial reforms.85 The 13 countriesinvolved in the process agreed to execute a series of currency swap arrangementsbetween their central banks, consenting to lend each other part of their hardcurrency reserves if any of their currencies came under speculative pressure. As aresult of the CMI, in May 2001 Japan announced bilateral deals with South Korea,Thailand and Malaysia. Together with the US $1 billion announced by theASEAN countries in November 2000, the mutual central bank support comprisedmore than US $700 billion in reserves. In July 2001, Japan and the Philippinesreached a basic agreement to set up a US $3 billion-peso swap facility as part ofthe envisaged Asia-wide currency safety net.86

The CMI was seen as a first step of monetary integration in East Asia, finallyresulting in a monetary union.87 On that basis, long-term goal of a cooperativemonetary regime in East Asia has repeatedly been outlined by Japan. In aninterview in January 2000, Sakakibara Eisuke, former state secretary of theJapanese finance ministry, strongly advocated that kind of collaboration.88 In linewith the Japanese position, other Asian countries also encouraged expandedcooperation in social and cultural fields. As Malaysian Minister of Industry andForeign Trade Rafidah Aziz sees it, integration in areas like youth, academic andmedia exchanges should begin right away. Building on further exchange in thesefields, the minister says officials of the 13 participating countries can begin workon a customs compendium for the region.89 Accordingly, politicians from China,Japan, and South Korea reached agreement at the Singapore summit in March2001 to begin a study to examine the feasibility of creating an East Asian economiccommunity of the ASEAN plus three members.90

Between 2000 and 2009, China’s and Japan’s quest for leadership, underlinedby repetitive innovative initiatives, remained the defining feature of East Asianinternational relations. Over the years, Beijing became diplomatically increasinglyactive. For instance, on the ASEAN+3 summit in Cebu in January 2007, ChinesePremier Wen Jiabao made a five-point proposal to upgrade the level of regionalcooperation, calling for the establishment of an Asian Bond Market, the initiationof a regional investment and credit guarantee mechanism, the improvement of thefinancing and investment environment in the region, strengthened cooperation in

85 See C. Randall Henning, East Asian Financial Cooperation (Washington DC: Institute forInternational Economics, 2002) for a comprehensive summary of the CMI.

86 South China Morning Post (14 July 2001).87 Far Eastern Economic Review (12 July 2001).88 World Bank (12 January 2000).89 Asia Times online (8 March 2001); see alsom MOFA (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan),

‘Japan-ASEAN Exchange Program for High School Students’ (23 May 2001), {http://www.mofa.go.jp}accesses on 25 July 2000.

90 Ibid.

Power, leadership and hegemony 947

the public health sector and the enhancement of financial risk management.Moreover, Wen suggested that ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea advancesecurity cooperation. Wen added that China will host a 10+3 symposium oncorporate bond markets and a workshop on the participation of internationaldisaster relief by the armed forces of participating countries. Finally, the premieralso proposed that ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea expand social andcultural cooperation:

Poverty alleviation and women affairs are new areas for 10 plus Three cooperation. Toshare experience in poverty alleviation, promote regional poverty alleviation cooperationand discuss ways of enhancing women’s role in promoting economic development andsocial progress, China will hold this year a training course for officials for povertyalleviation and another one on women affairs for 10 plus Three countries.91

In that sense, aspirations for leadership on both sides directly led to regionalinstitutional change. The prime example for this mechanism is the multilateralisa-tion of the CMI that was implemented in February 2009 and served as the core ofthe AMF that was boldly proposed by Japan in 1997. The 13 ASEAN+3 countriesagreed that they would expand the regional currency swap arrangement to up toUS $120 billion. While the size of the fund stood at US $80 billion before, Chinaand Japan engaged in a contest over which country would offer more to enhanceits liquidity. In an immense effort of symbolic value, both governments decided topay an equal amount. Both Tokyo and Beijing contributed US $38.4 billion to thepool, while South Korea supplied another US $19.2 billion.92 This supportsanother theoretical claim made above: Leaders are coalition-builders; they rarelyact alone. Subordinates are enlisted to fulfil certain roles in the leadership game;tasks are partly delegated.

This brief overview served to exemplify some of the most significant features ofpower, leadership and hegemony: First, leadership (in contrast to power) isessentially related to the idea of community-building; it is relational and dependenton willing followership; leaders do not act alone. Secondly, solving problems ininternational politics entails leadership; this may involve translating relative powercapabilities into bargaining leverage, but this is not necessarily so. Materiallyweaker states sometimes act as broker to gain support for salient solutions.Thirdly, leadership involves the continuous contestation over different representa-tions that we call politics; it requires communication and social interaction, whichare sometimes difficult to analyse, but still indispensable for a proper analysis ofleadership in regional contexts.

Conclusion

This study has shown that leadership by powerful states in processes of regionalinstitutionalisation is a significant, yet still ignored topic in the field of IR. Various

91 MFAPRC (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, People’s Republic of China), ‘Work in Partnership toPromote Win-win Cooperation’, Address by Wen Jiabao, Premier of the State Council of ThePeople’s Republic of China at the Second East Asia Summit Cebu, the Philippines (15 January2007),{http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjdt/zyjh/t290183.htm} accesses on 6 March 2007.

92 BBC Monitoring Global Newsline Asia Pacific Economic file (3 May 2009).

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theoretical strands have been discussed as to the requirements of effectiveleadership in international affairs. Referring to Steven Lukes’93 three-dimensionalview of power, it was argued that leadership is effective and sustainable whenforeign elites acknowledge the leader’s vision of international order and internaliseit as their own. Drawing on James MacGregor Burns’94 work, leadership wasdifferentiated from power. In contrast to power wielders, leaders might be able toget potential followers to see the world through their eyes in a hegemonic struggle.Moreover, leaders are effective as they induce change. Leadership, again in contrastto brute power, is inseparable from the wants and needs of followers, but thesewants and needs may be changed through social interaction.

Finally, analysing Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s political theory, theprocess of how to engage potential followers in the debating and contesting ofideas and of meanings was further investigated under the heading of discursivehegemony.95 On the basis of the empirical case that was introduced in the previoussection, it can be concluded that the struggle over meaning is central to anunderstanding of leadership. Meaning has to be internalised in the inter-subjectiverepresentations of other relevant actors. In East Asia, a strategy of ‘complexengagement’96 of Southeast Asian countries forms the main pillar in China’s andJapan’s leadership strategies: this kind of engagement is in constant need ofattracting potential followers, of interacting in different issue areas, of ‘argumen-tative persuasion’97 and its support by material incentives.

In conclusion, hegemony-based leadership means nothing more than thediscursive struggle between political actors over the assertion that their particularrepresentations of the world have a universal significance. This is what leadershipboils down to at the end of the day: The leader is the initiator, creator, anddirector in a struggle over meanings. It is the leader who makes communicationand social interaction possible in the first place. While absolute power wielders tendto be objectified and dehumanised, leadership has to be seen as one of the essentialand omnipresent features of social life in general and of international politics inparticular. Of course, hegemony-based leadership is issue specific, culturallyembedded, historically contingent, and never to be understood as a once-and-for-all decision. Once a particular political force becomes hegemonic, however, it mightbe able to prevail for some time. This allows us a view into the future of EastAsian regionalism: It looks as if the institutionalisation of the region had gainedground to an extent that it is irreversible for the foreseeable future.

93 Lukes, Power.94 Burns, Leadership.95 Due to limited space, methodological issues are not addressed in this article. A possible path towards

empirical research is offered by critical discourse analysis (CDA). CDA is concerned with structuralrelationships of dominance, discrimination, social inequality and control as conveyed by language.It accepts the claim of an ultimate impossibility of fixing meanings by speech and recognises the roleof hegemony as a process of temporal fixation. However, it is also interested in unveiling thefunction of discourses which are used to generate and sustain unequal social power relations and canbe identified as ideologies. See, Norman Fairclough, Analysing Discourse. Textual analysis for socialresearch (London/New York: Routledge, 2003), for an overview.

96 Ba, ‘Who’s socializing whom?’97 Ibid., p. 161.

Power, leadership and hegemony 949