Regional Intellectual Hegemony and Regional Connectivity: Japan's Norms of Development, International Research Organisations and Network-Building in Southeast Asia

This thesis aims to analyse how the Japanese government supports Southeast Asian transport development by allocating assistance through the works of the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), the Institute of Developing Economies of Japan External Trade Organisation (IDE-JETRO), and the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI). It questions the process through which the ideas and norms of Southeast Asia’s regional transport development were constructed, cascaded, and internalised in Southeast Asia. This thesis applies Finnemore and Sikkink’s ‘norm life cycle’ framework as an analytical framework. It analyses the norm life cycle of regional transport development by integrating information and opinions from documentary research and in-depth interviews with officials and intellectuals in both Japan and Southeast Asia.

The arguments of this thesis are threefold. First, the Japanese governmental agencies (i.e. MOFA, METI, MOF, JICA, JETRO, ERIA, IDE-JETRO, and ADBI) work together as a ‘norm entrepreneur’ – or a ‘regional intellectual hegemon’ (RIH) – to construct ideas and norms and further cascade them to Southeast Asian intellectuals’ and government officials’ professional and institutional connections. The governments in Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Secretariat then internalise these ideas and norms into their transport development schemes. Second, IROs are research organisations that construct ‘practical knowledge’ as recommendations for Southeast Asia on how to connect the region by regional transport networks. Third, the ideas and norms of regional transport development constructed by the ERIA, IDE-JETRO, and ADBI are composed of (1) ideas of infrastructure development, (2) spatial and connectivity norms, (3) norms of economic activities, (4) norms of knowledge sharing, and (5) ideas and norms of environmental protection and sustainable development. These ideas and norms help the region to become connected both physically and institutionally whilst paying attention to social development.