Does regionalization promote regionalism? Evidence from East Asia

Scholars generally agree that regionalization and regionalism are different phenomena; however, unresolved arguments remain as to whether there is a causal relationship between the two. In particular, whether or not regionalization promotes regionalism is a subject of debate. This paper aims to comprehensively clarify and explain the relationship between regionalization as embodied in trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) and regionalism as characterized by preferential trade agreements (PTAs) using event history analyses of East Asian economic data from 1985 to 2018. The paper concludes that although a positive and significant relationship exists between FDI and some types of PTAs, trade has no relationship with the latter. This conclusion challenges extant literature, which has argued that an increase in PTAs in East Asia (the outcome of regionalism) is the consequence of economic interdependence (regionalization). Moreover, these findings indicate that political factors such as territorial disputes and joint democracy negatively affect certain types of PTAs. This result is contrary to the conventional wisdom that predicts increased cooperation and lower tariffs between democracies and therefore suggests further investigations of the determinants of PTAs.