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Europe’s Transformative Power in Southeast Asia: Diffusion and International Cooperation in ASEAN

This paper seeks to explain the contradictory pattern of cooperation within ASEAN. To do so, it starts from a conventional empirical puzzle: Why do ASEAN member states translate their intent of regional cooperation into institutional designs that are incapable of coping with those problems the institutions are established for? And why and how does an institutional design that is objectively inadequate to perform institutional functions nevertheless promote peace? I argue in this article that apparently dysfunctional institutionalization in Southeast Asia occurs because there is actually no genuine demand for a more formalized institution. ASEAN exists and flourishes because it has mimicked the European integration process. ASEAN members have celebrated institutionalized cooperation as means to increase their international reputation. This diffusion process effectively provides a discount on the demand for a more formal institution. Since there was a lesser objective demand, institutionalized cooperation has taken the form or design of network governance geared toward the production of ASEAN as an institution, with little formalized structures and reliance on socially rather than legally binding rules. In sum, diffusion and networks explain ASEAN and given the EU's role model, the network structure and – most importantly – ASEAN's effectiveness in promoting regional stability.