Candidate: Chien-Hong Lee

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Political Science

Title: International Cooperation in the World of Sovereign but Interdependent Nation States: Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation as an International Regime

Committee:
Dr. Alan Isaak, Chair
Dr. Lawrence Ziring
Dr. J. Kevin Corder
Dr. Wie-Chiao Huang

Date: Thursday, August 9, 2001 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
3309 Friedmann

Abstract:
Today it is widely believed that globalization is intensifying economic interdependence and posing tremendous challenges on nation-states. Against this backdrop, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation was formed in 1989 and claimed to respond to the growing interdependence among its members. The general purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships among identities, interests and international public policy in terms of the institutional development of APEC. Specifically, this study has two aims. First, I develop a constructivist model of international regimes. This model consists of three parts aiming at conceptualizing how regime members' collective identity and interests are constructed, how pre-existing identities and interests are activated and may be changed during policy discourse, and how policy stability and change evolve over time that reshape members' collective identity and interests. Second, I use this model to help analyze how APEC evolves in response to internal dynamics and external pressures in terms of policy stability and change. The central claim of this study is that the coherence of collective identity among APEC members is essential to policy discourse for institutional development.

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