Managing Regional Energy Vulnerabilities in East Asia: Case Studies

Energy vulnerability is not a new concept and states big or small face their own set of challenges. In East Asia access to oil and natural gas supplies outside the region has been and will continue to be a fact of life, along with the associated uncertainties in different forms and of different natures. This book sheds new light on East Asian inter-state cooperation and collaboration in energy developments. It focuses on projects that have demonstrated effectiveness in addressing energy vulnerabilities faced by the ten states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China, Japan, and South Korea in northeast Asia. The authors develop the concept of energy vulnerability to avoid pitfalls of securitizing the trajectory of change and follow insights derived from non-traditional security conceptualizations in studying energy policies to examine how issue-specific cooperation efforts between states are playing themselves out. The case studies demonstrate how country and issue specific cooperation projects can enhance collective welfare in the field of energy. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, sociology, development studies, and international political economy particularly the political economy of East Asia, energy and development studies, regional and global governance of energy and the environmental economics.