Cultural Commodities and Regionalization in East Asia

In order to characterize and explain regional formation processes, theories in the field of international relations have focused primarily on political and economic parameters that were drawn from experiences in Western Europe. In East Asia, however, it is often mentioned that "regional dynamism" and cross-border economic activities, rather than formal agreements between governments, or shared historical or cultural "Asian" background generates the formation of the region. This article, however, examines the role popular culture plays in shaping and regionalizing East Asia. It focuses on the process by which confluences of culture have diffused throughout East Asian markets in the decades surrounding the 1990s and the concurrent formation of regional media alliances. An attempt is made to go beyond state-centric explanations of regionalization and extend the cultural approach to regionalization, demonstrating how popular culture can affect regional formation.