ISAS Working Papers

This paper is the introductory chapter of a forthcoming book on the proposed title "Can Regionalism work for South Asia?" The book is a collection of essays in which individual pieces stand alone as contributions to the ongoing debate on South Asia's changing position in the global economy and in the evolving international political order. However, the essays can be read together as a book since one set of themes - an overall logic - constructs a case for how South Asia could take advantage of the rapid changes in the global economic, social and political systems. However, for that to happen, the countries in the region will have to discard the weight of history and work together as a region rather than as individual countries pursuing their separate interests.