Regionalism around the world has entered a new phase. It has done so, in parallel with the erosion of what can be regarded as the post-Cold War world—an ideal world imagined mainly in the West after the end of the East-West confrontation, in which a global order would be established on the basis of liberal values and cooperative relations between great powers, under the leadership of those in the West. Such an ideal world has been eroding, due to three developments on a global scale in recent years. The first is the spread of illiberalism, which undermines the existing liberal international order founded on liberal values, such as free trade, democracy, and human rights. The second is the intensification of the so-called new Cold War between the Western powers, on the one hand, and China and Russia, on the other. The final development is the rise of the global south, which challenges the belief that Western powers play a leading role in establishing a global order. In parallel with these three developments, regionalism around the world has entered a new phase, having illiberal characteristics, constituting the front line of the new Cold War, and/or signifying the rise of the global south.

This introductory chapter of a special issue on a new phase of regionalism provides an overview of the situations in various parts of the world. To begin with, in Europe, regionalism with illiberal characteristics has been emerging. The European Union has been implementing a set of illiberal policies toward immigrants and refugees. Next, in the Indo-Pacific, regionalism has been burgeoning, having illiberal characteristics and constituting the front line of the new Cold War. Both the US and China have been deviating from the decades-old Asia-Pacific regionalism while implementing illiberal and confrontational Indo-Pacific policies. In addition, in many other parts of the world, regionalism has been developing, signifying the rise of the global south, although some of it has illiberal characteristics and/or constitutes the front line of the new Cold War. To illustrate, the BRICS countries have been building their own economic order, the characteristics of which are distinct from those of the existing liberal international order, thereby provoking the Western powers. Many other global south countries have been assertively defending their illiberal policies against Western interference while strengthening regional cooperation. Regional organizations in the Middle East and Africa have been maintaining regional order by autonomously conducting peace operations. All these new trends — collectively defining a new phase of regionalism — are likely to become more salient in the future and consequently prompt students of regionalism to intensify their research efforts.

Recently, regionalism is said to be under stress. Especially, the European Union is often referred to as a typical case of regionalism that has faced several crises during the last two decades. This article aims to examine how regionalism responds to crisis, by analyzing the case of the European Union during and after the refugee crisis. For the purpose, this article focuses on developments of the EU external migration and asylum policy.

Since the European refugee crisis in 2015/ 2016, in contrast to long stalemate of the reform process of the internal European common asylum system, the external dimension of the migration and asylum policy becomes most dynamic strand of the EU migration policy. By applying the theoretical framework of policy externalization, this article traces the development of the external EU migration policy, and analyzes how the borders of the EU’s migration governance have been extended toward outside the region.

In the first section, this article, therefore, briefly describes the historical evolution of the EU externalization policies with the theoretical view point—externalization from destination country to transit country, and further to country of origin of migrants and asylums—, and embeds the responses to the refugee crisis in migration and asylum policy area in that the historical evolution of the externalization. By doing so, the article argues the novel aspects of the EU externalization policies after the crisis.

In the second section, it analyzes two cases in detailed manner to discuss the said novel elements in the EU’s accelerated efforts of its policy externalization—namely, (a) the case of the migration governance in the central mediterranean route, especially between Italy/ EU and Libya, as a case of governance delegation of border management to a transit country, and (b) a case of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF for Africa) with the focus of the Sahel/Lake Chad region, as a case of the externalization beyond transit country.

In the third section, based on the analyzes in those case studies, it discusses the limitations of the EU’s policies in terms of effectiveness, with the case of Libya, Mali, and Niger, and also problems accompanied by the externalization policies, such as negative consequences of the policies on individuals’ rights protections, different priorities between the EU and Africa, needs of adjustment between the EU’s border management policy and the ECOWAS’s regional free movement policy. Lastly, it also briefly discusses the more external limits of the externalization policy derived from recent political upheavals and destabilizations of circumstances in West Africa.

The Indo-Pacific region, encompassing the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean, has emerged as a focal point of geopolitical competition, where economic interdependence is intertwined with rising military tensions. This paper examines the development of U.S. hegemony in the Indo-Pacific from 2009 to 2024, encompassing the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. While existing analyses have predominantly focused on material factors, such as military and economic power, it emphasizes the ideational dimensions of U.S. strategy, particularly the role of liberal internationalism in constructing and sustaining hegemony.

Drawing on Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as adopted by Robert W. Cox, this paper argues that U.S. hegemony in the Indo-Pacific is best understood as “consensus-based hegemony.” This approach relies on securing ideological alignment with allies and partners, particularly Japan and Australia, alongside material dominance. Through the promotion of so-called liberal international values such as democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, the United States has fostered a framework that reinforces its leadership in the region. Middle powers such as Japan and Australia, through military alliances and economic partnerships, actively contribute to the liberal international order while advancing regional stability.

The analysis begins by situating the concept of hegemony within international relations theory, contrasting realist, liberal, and Gramscian perspectives. It then traces U.S. Indo-Pacific policy under successive administrations. The Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” strategy sought to enhance U.S. influence and regional stability through military and economic initiatives, embedding liberal values. The Trump administration adopted a more confrontational stance, explicitly countering China’s rise through both economic and military measures. The Biden administration has maintained strategic opposition to China while emphasizing multilateral cooperation, promoting democratic values, and fostering economic integration.

This paper highlights the duality of U.S. policy, which combines the promotion of liberal international values with the pursuit of strategic interests to maintain geopolitical dominance. By leveraging partnerships with Japan and Australia, the United States sustains a rules-based order and consolidates its influence. These partnerships reflect shared values but also serve U.S. strategic interests, particularly in countering China’s influence. While challenges such as domestic polarization, global economic disparities, and resistance from rival powers persist, U.S. hegemony in the Indo-Pacific remains robust. Its hegemonic presence lies in the combination of material power and ideational alignment, making it more sustainable than often assumed. This paper concludes by examining the implications of U.S. Indo-Pacific policy for regional stability, the liberal international order, and the evolving balance of power in this strategically vital region.

Since the 2010s, the regional concept of the “Indo-Pacific” has gained global prominence and has been adopted as an official term by many governments, including major powers. However, in practice, regional cooperation under the “Indo-Pacific” framework has not gained significant traction across the region. Japan and the United States, the proponents of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) initiative, have implemented numerous policies and projects since the mid-2010s, aimed at stabilizing the international and regional orders, presenting the “Indo-Pacific” as a formal regional concept. In 2019, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) publicized the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) to enhance its centrality and integrity under the circumstances of the intensifying great power politics in the region. Meanwhile, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), geographically at the center to the Indo-Pacific region, has been promoting its “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) while openly criticizing the FOIP championed by Japan and the United States.

Despite the growing popularity of the Indo-Pacific concept, why has Indo-Pacificism not gained momentum? Specifically, why have multiple frameworks referring to “Indo-Pacific” as a new regional concept failed to emerge, instead of the existing “East Asia” and “Asia-Pacific”? Why have most major countries in the region not actively sought to establish new regional institutions?

To address these questions, it is essential to examine China’s role. This study investigates the relationship between China and ASEAN in the context of the “Indo-Pacific” concept. It focuses on ASEAN’s institutional strategy toward China and China’s responses to it, particularly in light of how Beijing has responded to the dissemination of ASEAN’s “Indo-Pacific” discourse.

This article contends that China has strategically utilized ASEAN’s institutional approach to counterbalance that of the United States. Amid the United States-China rivalry, the PRC, aiming to prevent ASEAN from aligning with American containment efforts, has embraced the AOIP idea of the regional organization in Southeast Asia while emphasizing its alignment with the BRI. In addition, by simultaneously denouncing the US-led FOIP, Beijing has sought to dilute Washington’s regional influence, leveraging its perceived closeness to ASEAN. This analysis yields key insights into the research questions. While the term “Indo-Pacific” is shared between the United States and ASEAN, as well as between China and ASEAN, it is not shared by the United States and China. This divergence has hindered the realization of Indo-Pacificism as a cohesive regional framework.

In recent years, there have been indications in the global economy that the multilateral international system established after the Second World War is in turmoil. The Bretton Woods-GATT system has strengthened the prosperity of the golden age of capitalism. Recently, however, the World Trade Organization (WTO), the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), has noticeably stagnated. The Doha Round, launched in the early 2000s, was effectively abandoned when it failed to reconcile the conflicting interests of Western advanced countries with those of emerging countries represented by China, India, and Brazil. It is gradually ceding its role as a forum for trade liberalisation and rule-setting to Free Trade Agreements (FTAs). The dispute settlement procedure, which was the selling point of the WTO, has also become dysfunctional because of the continued American refusal to reappoint Appellate Body members. The Bretton Woods institutions—the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—are also criticised for their seemingly anachronistic Western-led governance and neoliberal approach to promoting structural reforms. They face competitive pressures from regional institutions such as the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the New Development Bank (NDB) created by the BRICS.

An orthodox interpretation of this situation is as follows: Incumbent international institutions have lost their effectiveness and appeal with the declining power of their main supporters, the US and Europe, and the function of liberal institutionalism that they have served has been undermined. Simultaneously, competing regional institutions, which encompass the realist objective of gaining influence and authority, add to this undermining tendency. This tendency is likely to endure for a conceivable future in that it occurs within the decline of the liberal international order, of which liberal institutionalism is an important component.

In contrast to the above orthodox interpretation, this study indicates that the emphasis on competitive challenges from new regional institutions and the weakening of liberal institutionalism is a one-sided view by examining the three areas covered by the Bretton Woods-GATT system: trade, currency, and development finance. It then argues that the regional institutions that have emerged in each sector do not necessarily challenge the incumbent institutions but rather maintain their complementarity and consistency with them, and the incumbent institutions increasingly acquire the role of a legitimate base for the regional institutions. These arguments suggest that liberal institutionalism supported by the Bretton Woods-GATT system has not lost its governance function.

In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on populist foreign policy, highlighting how populists often adopt uncooperative and confrontational stances toward international organizations, favoring unilateralism and bilateralism instead. This behavior is rooted in populists’ tendency to frame “elites” as the “Other” in opposition to the “people,” who are the in-group in their rhetoric. International organizations are often positioned as part of the elite, reinforcing the populists’ antagonistic attitude toward them.

This paper argues that it is crucial to distinguish between universal international organizations and regional organizations when analyzing populist foreign policy. The rationale for this distinction lies in the fact that regions can sometimes serve as a source of in-group formation through the regional identity. In this context, the binary opposition of “us” versus “other” in populist rhetoric can place the “region” on the side of “us,” rather than on the side of the “other” or the “elite.” In other words, regions can be framed as part of the “people,” rather than as an external or elite entity. Consequently, populists’ discourse regarding regional organizations and regionalism may be more positive and supportive compared to their discourse on universal international organizations.

Under this perspective, this paper undertakes a comprehensive analysis by selecting populist leaders from various regions across the globe, without bias, and systematically collecting their discourses through diverse sources. The goal is to uncover trends in how populists frame regional organizations. The findings reveal a common pattern in which the in-group, or “people,” is constructed not only at the domestic level but also at the regional level. As a result, regional organizations can be framed in a more favorable light by populists. However, it is important to note that such framing is not observed among all populists. For regional organizations to be positively positioned, certain conditions must be met—specifically, the degree to which member states have transferred their sovereignty and the level of “regionness.”

The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, it challenges the existing research on populist foreign policy by demonstrating that the relationship between populism and international organizations, as well as international cooperation, is more complex than previously thought. Second, it suggests that there is significant potential for populism to extend beyond nationalism, indicating that populism can indeed find resonance at the regional level, offering a nuanced understanding of the dynamics between populism and regionalism.

The organizational characteristics of regional organizations have been explained by supranationalism and intergovernmentalism regarding how much sovereignty is constrained. The degree of sovereignty constraints is usually measured by pooling sovereignty and delegation. Pooling sovereignty is observed when the veto of member states in regional organizations is restricted in their decision-making procedures. Delegation is to give some authority to the organs of regional organizations such as secretariats. The existing literature has treated regional organizations as a unit of analysis to identify the degree of sovereignty constraints and has paid little attention to the diversity of sovereignty constraints within regional organizations. This paper clarifies asymmetry in sovereignty constraints within regional organizations by measuring the degree of sovereignty constraints in institutional settings in security and economic fields. It takes multi-issue regional organizations from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa as cases. Both symmetric and asymmetric types are found, implying that the level of sovereignty constraints in a specific field can determine the one in the entire organization. In some asymmetric cases, pooling sovereignty in the security field is more pronounced than in the economic field. This result revises the conventional view that pooling sovereignty is more likely to be advanced in the economic field. The paper further investigates the background of the increasing pooling of sovereignty in the security field by taking the cases of the League of Arab States (LAS) and the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS). The existing literature provides functional and sociological perspectives as to why sovereignty is constrained or pooled in regional or international organizations. The functional perspective focuses on the cost and efficiency of cooperation, which leads to the introduction of majority voting. The sociological insight includes the diffusion of institutional models and policies. It argues for imitating institutional designs in pre-existing regional organizations. Incorporating the two perspectives, the paper argues, that in given insecure situations in the region, the number of member states or external actors’ assistance inducing the diffusion of institutional models could be the background for the increasing pooling of sovereignty in the security field. The LAS responded to insecurity in the region and expanded membership by establishing the Arab Peace and Security Council consisting of only five member states to prevent or settle conflicts. ECOWAS also established the Mediation and Security Council consisting of nine members, taking the United Nations Security Council as a model. The argument in this paper provides a new insight into the existing literature which has not analyzed how sovereignty is constrained in security cooperation.

Since the 1990s, numerous armed conflicts have erupted across Africa. In response, regional organizations on the continent, such as the African Union (AU), have actively participated in peace operations despite their limited capacity. How have African regional organizations conducted peace operations despite capacity constraints? Previous studies have primarily focused on the relationship between African regional organizations and external institutions such as the United Nations. These studies emphasized that African regional organizations could have limited initiatives for their peace operations due to their dependence on external support. However, in reality, to conduct peace operations and information gathering on the fields, African regional organizations actively collaborate with civil society organizations (CSOs). Notably, since the 2010s, there has been a growing trend among regional organizations to expand the involvement of CSOs in policymaking processes, meaning the expansion of the significance of CSOs in peace operations in African regional organizations. Therefore, this paper examines the relationships between African regional organizations and African CSOs in peace operations.

To address this objective, this article focuses specifically on conflict prevention by AU and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Although conflict prevention has historically received less attention, it is increasingly regarded as crucial since its cost-effectiveness compared to other types of operations. In Africa, ECOWAS has been a pioneer, establishing the mechanism of conflict prevention as early as the 1990s. Then, AU has been developing that mechanism in collaboration with sub-regional organizations since the 2000s. Therefore, this paper examines conflict prevention practiced by AU and ECOWAS in corporation with African CSOs.

Under the analytical perspectives outlined above, this paper has clarified two points. Firstly, the AU and ECOWAS have integrated the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), a CSO, into their conflict prevention mechanisms. Consequently, AU and ECOWAS have relied on WANEP for the monitoring and early warning. Besides, to ensure swift early responses, ECOWAS and the AU have undertaken organizational reforms to streamline internal information transmission since the 2010. These reforms have enhanced early response systems in West Africa led not only by regional organizations but also by individual countries and CSOs.

Secondly, the AU, ECOWAS, and CSOs such as WANEP have developed this collaborative framework for conflict prevention to address limitations each other. In other words, African regional organizations, which face constraints such as limited funding and human resources, are not solely dependent on external support. Instead, they actively engage in peacebuilding efforts through partnerships with actors within the continent. This represents one pathway toward realizing the principle of “African solutions to African problems.”

Following the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2002, the attitude of African countries, particularly regarding resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), has attracted broad attention because a significant number of them did not vote for the Western initiative accusing Russia of the invasion. Despite their various attitudes, there has been a systematic difference in voting patterns among African countries. This paper aims to identify the differences in voting patterns and explain the reasons.

From the analysis of three important UNGA resolutions, this paper identified three different voting patterns, which have been consistent over time. To explain the patterns, Russian influence over African countries has been investigated through the analyses of military and economic relations. Although Russia is Africa’s largest supplier of military equipment, the relationship between arms provision and UNGA voting has been unclear. For most African countries, economic relations with Russia have not been significant.

Various reasons, including their economic vulnerabilities and dissatisfaction with the Western-led international order, have been explored to explain African countries’ ambiguous attitudes toward Russia. While these reasons are generally convincing, they do not explain the different voting patterns among African countries.

The paper argues that the internal political structure of African countries can explain the difference. Classifying the countries by the length of the ruling party’s dominance as well as the extent of political freedom, the study finds that two groups of countries have tended not to follow the Western accusation against Russia, namely, the countries in which the same ruling parties have maintained long-term political dominance, and the countries with authoritarian rule. While some countries can be classified into both groups, the latter includes countries where political parties are banned.

The first group mainly includes countries where liberation movements became the ruling parties after independence and have maintained power until today. During the liberation struggle, the movement had antagonistic relations with Western countries and the existing international order. The memories of the liberation have been vivid since then because of the ruling parties’ efforts to sustain them, which are the primary source of their legitimacy. As the current war in Ukraine is turning into a proxy war between the major powers and is considered to be closely connected with the international order, these countries are reluctant to follow the Western-led initiative. Regarding the second group, the distance from Western values, such as democracy and political freedom, has arguably determined their voting pattern.