Whose Ideas Matter? constitutes a carefully constructed historical argument about Asian regionalism that challenges the prevalent top-down constructivist view that ideational forces move exclusively from Western institutions to Asian organizations. Employing primary sources, including interviews with relevant officials and original documents from regional conferences, Acharya demonstrates that Asian actors modified Western ideas to conform to existing Asian concerns. This is an important book, the most thorough explication of how constructivist theory enhances understanding of Asian regionalism. Amitav Acharya has written not only the most thorough application of constructivist theory on Asian regionalism but he has also added a new dimension to that theory on the localization of norm diffusion.
Sheldon W. Simon
Perspectives on Politics
Especially when discussing the Cold War period, the work is an important contribution to the understanding of the history of multilateral cooperation in the region. It usefully complements rational theorizing, as well as the usual explanations of why ASEAN is so weakly institutionalized: incomplete processes of nation-building (for instance in Cambodia and Timor-Leste); intra-ASEAN dissonances (for instance about the future regional role of the United States and China, and contested territorialities in the South China Sea); and the vast economic, social, cultural and political differences between the countries.
Oliver Hensengerth
International Affairs
In this book, Acharya arguably provides the most clearly stated volume in support of the constructivist tenet that a relatively low level of cooperation in Asia nevertheless has to be regarded as an outcome of normative interactions.
Ryoma Sakaeda
Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs