Southeast Asian Regionalism from above and from below examines regionalist developments from three perspectives. First, the book analyses the nature and development of Southeast Asian regionalism. Thus it re-examines the validity of the distinction between the new and old regionalism which was established in the beginning of the 1990s to describe the differences between different regions and the nature of Asian-Pacific regional co-operation in particular. Hence the book analyses economic, political and civil society issues in Southeast Asian regionalism. Second, it analyses the regional organisation, ASEAN, from both the IR mainstream point of view and the alternative approach, which emphasises regionalism more as a social construction. Third, the book puts Southeast Asian regionalism into the global context by reflecting the current regional tendencies to the global pressures brought by the Asian economic crises.