Abstract
This paper challenges a mainstream view in ASEAN literature that ASEAN-level institutions constrain the spread of global liberal policies. It rather shows that ASEAN elites’ collective diplomatic practices have facilitated the spread of these policies by making ASEAN a lively “transfer platform” that external liberal countries can use to actively teach and study liberal policies and ideas. First, ASEAN’s methods for engaging external partners have allowed the promoting countries to earn recognition as reliable and competent partners committed to ASEAN concerns by institutionalizing the organizational bases for sustainable interactions with ASEAN stakeholders. Second, elites’ constant pledges of ambitious plans for regional integration have had positive effects in terms of lowering political costs of the promotion activities by the external partners because these activities were framed as responses to ASEAN’s voluntary turn towards liberalism. Third, thanks to ASEAN’s “let’s gather and talk” practices, the promoting countries can take advantage of ASEAN as a useful venue for expanding pan-ASEAN coalitions that can eventually become local allies supporting liberal reforms of their countries.
Introduction
This article critically responds to a major claim among ASEAN observers regarding the liberal turn of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Many studies on ASEAN agree that its institutional and political nature constrains the diffusion of liberal economic policies. They generally highlight the stickiness of existing institutions. Some claim that the major pan-ASEAN norms such as sovereignty and non-interference constitute the collective cognitive priors of ASEAN elites, which have made the leaders’ compliance with liberal policies difficult. 1 Others focus on how the existing institutions such as consensus and informality have undermined liberalization at the collective level. 2 Some others emphasize ASEAN’s success in diffusing their own normative arrangements to its Dialogue Partners (DPs) as the core rule of the game. For them, ASEAN is a social place where Southeast Asian countries take “normative power” in socializing major powers and diffusing the local norms to the outsiders. 3 Some rationalist studies argue that global ideas, including liberalism, tend to be carefully selected through ASEAN institutions only when the ideas do not undermine individual and collective interests of ASEAN elites. 4 Despite different views regarding the sources of ASEAN institutions, there is a consensus that ASEAN has been a venue in which the ASEAN Way and other relevant Westphalian norms are widely propagated; further, that the diffusion of liberal ideas is notably constrained by its institutional arrangements.
This paper challenges this dominant view that considers ASEAN-level institutional elements only as factors constraining the spread of global liberal policies. Observations show that ASEAN’s institutional or practice traits do not always constrain the transfer of liberalism to the region. Rather, combined with external partners’ attempts to engage in ASEAN matters, certain collective norms and practices among government elites at the ASEAN level have made it a lively “transfer platform” that some liberal DPs can use to actively teach and study liberal policies and ideas. Specifically, first, ASEAN elites’ constant pledges and announcements of ambitious plans for regional integration have had positive effects in lowering the political costs of their (liberal DPs’) transfer activities because these activities are framed as responses to ASEAN leaders’ voluntary turn toward liberalism. In other words, the practices (i.e. political elites’ ritualistic public announcements of large projects and programs) have helped provide external governments with legitimate room to develop liberalizing projects according to their needs. Second, ASEAN’s mode of engaging external partners has allowed major external countries to earn recognition as reliable and competent partners committed to ASEAN concerns by institutionalizing the organizational bases for sustainable interactions with ASEAN stakeholders and ensuring competent management of diffusion. Third, thanks to the ASEAN practice of “let’s gather and talk,” transfer governments are also able to take advantage of ASEAN as a useful venue for expanding pan-ASEAN coalitions or elite networks that can eventually become local allies that support the liberal reforms of their countries. Counterintuitively, ASEAN’s practices have shaped ASEAN as an instrumental space in which diffusers of liberalism not only lower the political costs that foreign transfer agents would have to pay in an ASEAN setting, but also localize these transfer activities by labelling them as “made for ASEAN.”
This paper’s discussion is mainly based on government materials and participatory observations by the author, who was assigned to address ASEAN matters as a practitioner between early 2013 and early 2015 in Jakarta (where substantial ASEAN-related activities take place). During that period, the author was able to observe major practical activities of the DPs vis-a-vis the ASEAN side and the impacts of ASEAN elites’ institutional and organizational practices and approaches. On-site observation confirmed many of the constraints and limits of ASEAN-level institutions that have been widely discussed in literature about ASEAN’s transformation. However, it also allowed the author to observe an understudied part of the picture: the benefits and merits that some of the major collective practices at the ASEAN level provide for external powers’ transfer business. Existing literature has rarely addressed this. Mainly based on the author’s hands-on observations, this paper provides an alternative perspective to existing academic discussions on ASEAN.
The following sections discuss the ASEAN elites’ collective practices that have influenced external promoters of ASEAN’s liberalization. Hereafter, ASEAN refers to a collective association or group at the regional level in Southeast Asia. Regarding major actors on the transferring side, this paper particularly looks at the governments of Australia, the United States of America (US/USA), and the European Union (EU). As ASEAN’s major DPs, they have been actively conveying liberal policies and standards to ASEAN counterparts. Here, liberalism refers to a wide range of ideas, from market-oriented economic performance to social and political ideas that current global governance institutions advocate, such as rule of law, good governance, and human rights. Though these three external partners are committed in principle to assisting ASEAN’s liberalization in these diverse realms, their official development cooperation programs for the dialogue partnership and the actual plans of action reflect their prioritized interests in the economic liberalization of the region. As the focus of this article is on the chosen objectives of DPs and their strategies for achieving them, the analysis mainly examines their diffusing activities aimed to turn the ASEAN region into a freer and more integrated economy.
The first section below illustrates collective modes of engagement of the ASEAN elites with external partners, and discusses how they positively affect the performance of the diffusers. The next section identifies another major aspect, ASEAN leaders’ habitual attempts to publicly make large promises, and the manner in which these attempts have facilitated the tasks of the three DPs as diffusers of liberal policies. A discussion of ASEAN’s presence-first approach and the resulting effect on producing conditions conducive for diffusers follows. The concluding section sums up the argument.
The unexpected effects of ASEAN practices on the diffusion of liberal ideas
ASEAN-centred engagement of major external powers
What has been widely discussed as an observable practice among ASEAN elites, particularly since the end of the Cold War, is constant engagement with major outside powers regarding their regional concerns. Many observers have already identified it as the common practice that major Southeast Asian countries individually undertake by employing various notions of “enmeshment,” “limited alignment,” or “institutional balancing.” 5 However, the practice has also been performed collectively at the ASEAN level, as member countries have constantly engaged external powers in building a regional community as well as maintaining regional order. 6 The major purpose of ASEAN’s collective activities in its external relations is to secure the presence of these outside powers, particularly the major players whose influences have resonated in the region. The selected major powers were categorized as full DPs of ASEAN. 7 Most cooperation activities are conducted in diverse bilateral (i.e. one DP–ASEAN) initiatives, but there are also broader ASEAN-led multilateral frameworks including the ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus.
One can observe two distinctive features from Southeast Asian government elites’ efforts to engage collectively with their major neighbours. First, a common agenda for joint cooperation with each of the major players revolves around ASEAN’s intra-regional matters. ASEAN community building is not only considered a shared objective, but also as a means to strengthen bilateral relations between ASEAN and its DPs. It may be that, as many observers put it, ASEAN elites’ original intent for the organization’s engagement practices was to serve their geostrategic concerns, such as maintaining order or building an equilibrium of power. However, in practice, ASEAN member governments also proactively take advantage of the presence of the major external parties by soliciting their financial, technical, and political support for building a “resilient” region, which is a major goal of ASEAN. Aside from regular diplomatic discussions with DPs, ASEAN always sets its integration projects as core subjects for cooperation, and persuades neighbours to accommodate the collective interests of the Association.
Second, ASEAN governments have collectively developed procedural standards for cooperation with DPs and encouraged them to follow these ASEAN modes of cooperation. ASEAN governments’ collective attempts to engage major powers in the region consist of initiatives to draw external assistance to their regional projects in the name of bilateral and multilateral development cooperation. Their initiatives have been expanded particularly since the early 2000s, when the regional projects began to be framed as ASEAN community building. A series of ASEAN’s vision statements and subsequent master plans for community-building projects have become reference points for its cooperation partners, who were expected to draft a developing cooperation agenda with ASEAN. Once they entered the Dialogue Partnership, both parties were expected to make specific Action Plans for concrete projects involving joint cooperation. In addition, each DP is encouraged to establish major cooperation funds to finance these projects and programs. Further, the ASEAN side recommends that the DPs establish their own diplomatic missions as separate entities mandated to address ASEAN affairs. These missions should be based in Jakarta (to coordinate ASEAN affairs effectively), where all permanent missions to ASEAN of the 10 ASEAN member countries as well as the ASEAN Secretariat are located.
Both of these features of engagement reflect ASEAN member governments’ commitment to keeping the centrality of ASEAN in its external relations. The notion of “ASEAN centrality” refers to an ASEAN-led regional framework in which “the region’s relations with the wider world are conducted with the interests of the ASEAN community in mind,” as Benjamin Ho puts it. 8 But, at the operational level, it also stresses the steering role of ASEAN in facilitating relations with external partners and related mechanisms. 9 In other words, ASEAN members collectively enmesh or engage with major external partners within institutional frameworks in such a way that ASEAN community building constitutes the core agenda for interactions with the externals.
What has been less observed with regard to this practice, however, is that the way ASEAN engages its external partners has also helped facilitate the transferral of practical knowledge for liberalization. The welcoming environment for external governments has allowed the DPs committed to liberalizing ASEAN to spread their knowledge relevant to regional integration in a more institutionalized local setting. The partner countries’ requests for enhancing institutional measures for interactions between ASEAN and themselves are not necessarily compatible with ASEAN’s tradition and preferences for informal and soft regionalism. However, dismissing these requests was not an optimal decision because institutionalizing interactions would also benefit ASEAN in securing the presence and support of these DPs in a sustainable way. As ASEAN’s commitment to its centrality in aligning with these major powers has led the agenda of ASEAN community building as the major topic for their mutual cooperation, external partners’ sustainable involvement in ASEAN matters has been encouraged, rather than discouraged, especially in terms of providing financial, technical, and political support. Though direct foreign involvement in building the ASEAN community might have been normatively incompatible with ASEAN’s principles for autonomy and non-interference, it has been encouraged in practice, at least in the name of development cooperation on ASEAN integration. 10
Australia, the EU, and the USA, as major DPs of ASEAN, took advantage of the conditions generated by the ASEAN governments’ collective practice of engagement for spreading liberal institutions and practices to ASEAN. First, in order to enjoy the benefit of proximity in facilitating socialization, they focused on building organizational bases where transfer agents dispatched from home could sustainably manage the entire cooperation programs with ASEAN. In addition to opening in Jakarta the diplomatic missions to ASEAN, mandated to run ASEAN-related business under the supervision of resident ambassadors, these governments also created teams of experts based in Jakarta whose knowledge of development cooperation could be directly used to manage policy and institutional transfers. When bilateral (i.e. between ASEAN and a non-ASEAN partner) and multilateral cooperation frameworks were established to institutionalize follow-ups, these diffusers made use of these frameworks for their institution/policy transfer purposes. Aid practitioners and experts were mandated to provide routine assistance to ASEAN community projects. Furthermore, the governments convinced ASEAN of the idea of stationing their own officers and experts in the ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) so that they could perform their daily routines jointly with ASEAN officers. Because of limits regarding the office occupancy, ASEC was not able to host all DP offices inside the complex. As of the time when this research was conducted, only these major transfer governments, including Japan and Germany, were able to establish their own offices for cooperation program management teams in the ASEC building.
Another approach that these external partners took was to provide systematic, gradual, and multi-year cooperation programs to demonstrate competency as reliable partners to local stakeholders. They sought to develop and manage concrete cooperative activities based on the grand purposes that their home governments wanted to highlight as their foreign policy priorities towards Southeast Asia. In addition, activities were usually implemented in a multi-year timeframe and managed in such a way that their interrelated nature could be accommodated. In other words, these governments were similar in pursuing systematic and institutionalized management of the cooperation programs with ASEAN.
Australia has one of the oldest cooperation partnerships with ASEAN, established through the ASEAN–Australia Economic Cooperation Program in 1974. The ASEAN–Australia Development Cooperation Program (AADCP) and AADCP II have followed, committing A$45 million for the period 2002–2008 and A$57 million for 2008–2019, respectively, with the aim of assisting ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) projects. 11 As for the EU, ASEAN is one of the main target regions for realizing its goal of becoming a model for regional integration. Thus, the EU has highlighted its “natural partnership” in which it can transfer its unique experience of regional community building to ASEAN, which is perceived as a region showing notable progress in terms of integration. It has established the multi-year ASEAN Regional Integration Support (ARISE) and ARISE II as a commitment to supporting AEC projects. Moreover, it has provided additional programs for specific topics of cooperation, such as statistics training, the Open Sky project, and intellectual property rights, in order to transfer its experience in regional integration to ASEAN stakeholders. 12 Likewise, the USA has also integrated its development cooperation projects into the grand program schemes. Based on the Joint Vision Statement on the ASEAN–US Enhanced Partnership issued in 2005, the USA and ASEAN developed the program entitled “ASEAN Development Vision to Advance National Cooperation and Economic Integration (ADVANCE)” for technical and institutional support related to the enhancement of economic integration for the period 2008–2013. When the program period of ADVANCE was over, the ASEAN Connectivity through Trade and Investment (ACTI) was established as a subsequent technical assistance program aimed to support implementation of several prioritized components of the AEC. 13
ASEAN practitioners (i.e. diplomats, ASEC officers, government officers, and aid experts) refer to such strategic multi-year grand schemes as representative of the “program-based approach,” the major feature of which can be explained more easily in contrast to the so-called “project-based approach” that most of the other DPs take. The project-based approach seeks greater flexibility in allocating cooperation funds. The partner countries taking this approach develop broadly defined priority areas of cooperation as basic criteria for project selection. Compared with the program-based approach that values the “fitness” of umbrella goals that may take years to achieve, the project-based approach gives ASEAN governments and partner countries more leeway to utilize cooperation funding based on changing political contexts. Besides, and perhaps most importantly, in the case of most DPs taking the project-based approach, headquarters in their home countries are mandated to make approval decisions for every concrete project for which budget funding is allocated. In contrast, for entities taking the program-based approach, such as Australia, the EU, and the USA, once the umbrella programs are approved by both ASEAN and partners, officers and experts based in the diplomatic missions to ASEAN and ASEC have relatively more discretion in developing and prioritizing concrete projects as long as they serve the grand purposes of the funds.
The program-based approaches that the transfer governments take could produce positive effects on transferring liberal policies to the ASEAN setting. First, they were able to create not only physical but social proximity with major local stakeholders of ASEAN community-building activities by constantly interacting with them, thus forming personal networks. Besides, these DPs’ systematic and competent management of cooperation activities in the local setting helps accommodate local concerns more promptly and accurately. When combined, both approaches can help the transfer governments earn recognition from the ASEAN side as reliable and competent partners committed to ASEAN concerns. Given that a receiver’s recognition of a diffuser’s competence is likely to facilitate further socialization, 14 what is transferred by a competent diffuser can become a reliable and accessible source of mimetic isomorphism for ASEAN members in the long term. 15 In this respect, ASEAN’s constant engagement of major partners provides positive opportunities for these governments to establish a more effective system for transferring know-how and standards in a stable and predictable way. 16
Big words first, actions later
Another major collective practice one can observe is that ASEAN elites constantly make ambitious pledges and plans for regional integration, despite huge development gaps and variances in institutional features across member countries. The major pledges for liberalization started decades ago, beginning with an announcement for an ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) in 1992 for trade in goods. Pledges on the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services followed in 1995. In 1997, leaders declared their intent towards liberalization again with the announcement of the ASEAN Vision 2020. The next year, they signed the ASEAN Investment Area. The Hanoi Action Plan was adopted as a master plan to implement AFTA. In 2003, with Indonesia’s initiatives under Bali Concord II, leaders adopted the notion of the AEC, which replaced the previous major pledges on trade liberalization. In the following year, they adopted the Vientiane Action Programme to reaffirm their resolve regarding rapid liberalization. In 2007, they declared another master plan for liberalization—the ASEAN Community Blueprints—as a more integrated guideline that slightly retouched existing plans. In 2010, countries agreed to bring the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement (ATIGA) into force as a legal instrument aimed to streamline provisions under numerous agreements and protocols related to trade in goods. In addition, they replaced the ASEAN Investment Area with the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement in 2012. With the announcement of the launch of the ASEAN Community, leaders adopted the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and replaced the “Roadmap for an ASEAN Community” (the previous blueprint for 2009–2015) with “ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together,” which included the new AEC Blueprint 2025. 17 These constant attempts to declare ambitious goals for liberalization, make follow-up plans, and commit to the same goals with differently labelled instruments have been routine practices at the ASEAN level.
To some observers, such repetitive pledges are noted as the elites’ persistent commitment to building a community, but criticisms abound mostly because these pledges have been rarely followed with actual implementation at the national level. 18 This word–action gap brings disappointment to external stakeholders, and leads to suspicions that such a practice is merely cheap rhetoric of the political and economic ruling elites. 19
However, on the flip side, regardless of their actual intentions or motives, the frequently criticized practice of making big pledges or articulating grand ambitions has been producing positive effects for some external stakeholders in helping them spread liberal policies. The constant ASEAN-level practice of announcing ambitious goals for regional integration means that the DPs interested in ASEAN’s liberal turn could lower the political costs associated with their attempts to transfer institutions and policies. Given ASEAN elites’ enduring support of non-interference and autonomy from external influences, these DPs might have received a serious backlash or resistance from ASEAN governments if their agenda for cooperation had been perceived as the foreign powers’ unilateral push for unwanted globalization. However, regardless of whether, and to what extent, these elites are willing to liberalize their economies, their rituals of announcing and drafting ambitious plans for the free flow of production factors give the transfer side legitimate room to develop its projects as “needs based.” They can also push ASEAN elites for more liberalization by claiming that outside evaluation and assessment of its progress is based on ASEAN’s voluntary guidelines. In other words, the ambitious words and plans of ASEAN elites provide the rationale according to which interested DPs can frame their involvement in transferring liberal policies as legitimate partnership actions driven by local requests. 20
Compared with other major DPs (e.g. Plus Three Countries, namely China, Japan, and South Korea), Australia, the EU, and the USA have made ASEAN’s liberal turn a highly prioritized agenda item for their partnership with the organization, by allocating substantial budget for the purpose of policy and institutional transfer. These governments commonly highlighted the fact that their programs are guided by the Roadmap for ASEAN Community (i.e. 2009–2015 ASEAN Community Blueprints and ASEAN Community Vision 2025), the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Work Plans, and the Master Plans on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC). They reflect ASEAN’s current priorities, derived from member governments’ main concerns and objectives for ASEAN integration. 21 Interestingly, this is in contrast to other major DPs, such as China, South Korea, India, and Russia, which prioritize other thematic issues, 22 and do not explicitly target ASEAN’s internal market integration. In addition, many other DPs (with the exception of Japan) allocate their ASEAN-related economic project budgets in activities promoting freer interaction and trade between ASEAN and home countries (e.g. FTA between ASEAN and the respective country, expert exchanges, home language training, et cetera). By comparison, the three liberal external partners invest the majority of their budgets in strengthening intra-ASEAN institutional and technical capacities, rather than bilateral relations between ASEAN and their home countries.
As for the EU, in view of ASEAN’s announcement about the community project and liberal turn in the early 2000s, it has put considerable effort into prioritizing cooperation with the agenda for ASEAN’s economic liberalization. Developing extensive programs for ASEAN’s integration support, the EU has highlighted that its support is based on “ASEAN’s wish” to draw on the EU’s experience with its own regional integration efforts. 23 Since the Nuremberg Declaration in 2007, many of the EU’s major programs supporting ASEAN’s economic community building have focused on transferring know-how about building new institutions for an open economy. For example, the EU established the ASEAN Air Transport Integration Project to support the development of ASEAN’s single aviation market. It also implemented the ASEAN Programme on the Protection of Intellectual Property Rights to strengthen the institutional capacity of the ASEAN Intellectual Property Rights Action Plan. In addition, under the ASEAN-EU Programme for Regional Integration Support, the EU chose to assist with the implementation of the ASEAN Cosmetics Directive outlining common standards for production as well as the design of the ASEAN Customs Transit System to lower administrative costs for imports and exports. 24 In a recently published report, the EU identified the support of business-friendly environments, elimination of non-tariff barriers, standard harmonization, the rule of law, and implementation of international standards on labour and industrial policies as its prioritized goals for ASEAN until 2020. 25
Likewise, Australia’s development cooperation program with ASEAN clearly supports assistance with ASEAN’s voluntary move to the AEC. Among others, Australia takes a “partnership approach” in its cooperation with ASEAN. With this approach, the government highlights its horizontal relations in transferring liberal policies to ASEAN by “directly supporting ASEAN policies” and emphasizing ASEAN’s local ownership for implementing established goals in a sustainable way. 26 Aiming to strengthen ASEC’s institutional and human capacity in terms of organizational development, economic research, and administration in order to enhance the implementation of activities at the national level, Australia has tried to localize the liberalization process in terms of goals and means. 27 The program specifically pursues development of enhanced knowledge for AEC policy-making, and development of AEC norms and standards. It also assists with socializing concepts, advantages, and opportunities in the AEC, and backs capacity building related to the establishment of the AEC. 28 Particular attention has been given to building standards in the fields of service, investment, consumer protection, and financial integration.
Similarly, the USA aims to deliver technical assistance to support public and private sector integration of the region. The cooperation programs state assisting ASEAN to fulfill its regional mandate as their main goal so that ASEAN will increase its ability to be competitive in the global marketplace. 29 They highlight US support for 12 priority integration sectors that ASEAN selected on its own. For example, the US cooperative program with ASEAN for the period 2008–2013 devoted special attention to assisting priority industry sectors such as the ASEAN Federation of Textile Industries by removing constraints in the business environment in order to improve the integration of intra-regional supply chains. 30 In the subsequent umbrella program for the period 2013–2018, the USA has highlighted its support for implementation of the ASEAN Single Window, which assists small- and medium-sized enterprises that account for 50 to 85 percent of the employment in ASEAN countries. Its program also included trade and investment facilitation through improving product quality, the sharing of good regulatory practices, and the broadening of market access. 31
Overall, for both policy and practical levels, the ASEAN-level ritual of making big promises has made ASEAN a welcoming platform for transferring institutional and regulatory practices for market liberalization. ASEAN’s reiterated declarations, visions, and follow-up plans have become solid reference points for what to do. The far-fetched goals for economic integration of the region allowed external diffusers to proceed with activities aimed for a more liberalized ASEAN without engaging in a coercive push or normative persuasion. It was possible that their transfer activities were described as assistance with “local” needs, rather than forceful transplantation or injection.
Presence over substance
Another notable characteristic of the member states’ collective practices at the ASEAN level is that they highly value friendly and loose gatherings among stakeholders as ASEAN’s unique way of conducting business. ASEAN has been described as a diplomatic grouping in which presence overrules substance of cooperation. As many practitioners put it, ASEAN-related meetings are not goal-oriented; rather, participants are expected to “consult” or “share” ideas—a process that frequently ends up with no tangible or deliverable outcomes. However, in the context of ASEAN-related meetings, getting to know each other, mingling, and becoming “friends” is considered necessary for further diplomatic interactions. Some ASEAN elites, especially in the older generation, perceive this approach as one of the reasons ASEAN has become successful in reducing interstate conflicts among members. It is also noted that personal relations among first-generation leaders and foreign ministers have been the main source of ASEAN’s durability, despite its lack of substantial progress. Although diplomats and government elites in the second and third generations have become more critical of the effectiveness of this approach, they still follow it because they admit it is the way ASEAN works.
The presence-based approach is not applicable to ASEAN members only. Non-ASEAN DPs are also expected to follow this practice when they address ASEAN matters. ASEAN country representatives continue to invite them to ASEAN gatherings, golf outings, and informal events conducive to mingling to get to know one another first. These invitations to a broader group of external parties and DPs have resulted in a substantial increase in the number of ASEAN-related meetings—now at more than 3000 a year, according to a diplomat in Jakarta. 32 Regardless of the frequency and the number, these meetings are still geared towards building (and maintaining) relationships; they are process-oriented without participants’ firm efforts to make concrete progress. 33 The DPs are expected to learn this ASEAN way of doing business as guests and novices to the practice. For diplomatic practitioners who are stationed in the missions to ASEAN, attending conferences and seminars throughout the ASEAN region and participating in coordinating meetings for various subjects account for most of their duties. Frequent absence of a country’s representatives from these routine meetings is frowned upon and often perceived as lack of the country’s commitment to ASEAN. Regardless of what or how much participants contribute to meetings, their presence is greatly appreciated and is a good building block for an ongoing relationship.
Although critics view such an ASEAN approach as costly, inefficient, and causing “meeting fatigue” among participants, what has rarely been noted is the socializing utility that the transfer governments could ironically enjoy from the mode of interactions that ASEAN elites have established as their way of doing business. Despite limitations of such practices in terms of producing short-term deliverable outcomes, the encouraging environment for friendly mingling created by this culture could also benefit the DPs committed to ASEAN’s liberal turn in building sectoral knowledge networks among stakeholders from the 10 ASEAN member countries. More importantly, the presence-based practice culture facilitates easy formation and initiation of groupings branded as “ASEANs.” In an environment in which “let’s meet first” is a routine, it would be easier to bring representatives from authoritarian governments to the learning table. Participation in meetings under the ASEAN label is considered routine; thus, the selected stakeholders from each country—especially experts, specialists, and junior government officials—would be able to join the international regional gatherings and avoid tight censorship or monitoring from the top. Besides, ASEAN’s lack of a systematic enforcement mechanism would further prevent these meetings from being highly politicized or considered dangerous. With the increasing frequency of ASEAN-related meetings initiated by DPs, these are perceived as “business as usual” venues for acquiring knowledge and networking with participants from other countries.
In this context, the transfer governments are able to provide massive funding for various types of learning initiatives (e.g. policy dialogues, conferences, workshops, and seminars) aimed at discussing topics related to institutional liberalization. Australia, together with ASEAN, ran several capacity-building projects on the issues of regional integration and training programs for ASEAN employees in specific industries. There has been a particular focus on assisting with the production and distribution of standard knowledge and best practices for investment, engineering, architecture, accounting, food and beverage services, and tourism, among others. The toolboxes and handbooks produced could be used as guidelines or major references for these learning initiatives that ASEAN stakeholders can access together and discuss. The EU puts special emphasis on sharing its know-how transfer through these gatherings, especially in the fields of air transport regulations, competition policies, investment promotion, Internet governance, and energy connectivity. It has also established several policy discussions between the two regions. The exchanges between the European Parliament and ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, ASEAN higher education policy dialogues, and EU–ASEAN policy dialogues on human rights are examples. The EU also emphasized socialization of youth through education support by providing around 4000 ASEAN students with scholarships under the Erasmus Mundus Programme and other EU member state programs. 34 Likewise, the US government has placed special emphasis on cultivating networks among ASEAN youth and emerging elites through projects such as the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Initiative, ASEAN–US Science and Technology Fellowship, Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, and Connecting the Mekong through Education and Training. 35
Once these networks or groups are established, they may serve as local channels that the DPs can use for transfer of knowledge. Designed to build relations among specialists or government officials in the 10 ASEAN countries, they may also evolve into communities of knowledge or skills. 36 Notably, with strong financial and administrative capacities to attract participation from ASEAN countries, the DPs have usually been central actors at gatherings, setting substantial agendas and providing major financial resources. They frequently perform as teachers in delivering technical knowledge, standard practices, norms, or rules that are internationally “taken-for-granted” or consensual ones. 37 In particular, as Diane Stone notes, 38 policy transfer can be more powerful when it targets novice or junior-level policy elites who are more flexible and open about the learning process by shaping the cognition of problems and accelerating the acquisition of knowledge. Best practices and know-how may become embedded knowledge, as the socialization theory suggests. 39 If we take the implications of what Peter Haas and others suggest, when these groupings are able to share knowledge or understanding after numerous years of interactions, they can function as “epistemic communities” or “practice communities” with views that are influential at the national level. Besides, such regional networks or alliances enable peer review systems to check and discuss the level and pace of reforms within each member country, thus making policy coordination at the ASEAN level more likely. 40
Conclusion
This article shows how ASEAN elites’ collective institutions and practices could unintentionally facilitate rather than constrain ASEAN’s evolution into a lively transfer platform for liberal policies and ideas, especially when they meet external partners interested in liberalizing the ASEAN setting. Specifically, constant engagement by ASEAN elites of major external powers in ASEAN matters, ritualistic public announcements of ambitious plans for regional integration, and a steady mode of engagement (which prioritizes presence over substance) are identified as routine practices that aid the process of providing external governments with legitimate room to spread their liberal policies or ideas.
This paper does not argue or predict that diffusion would lead to successful policy implementation at the national level. The DPs’ attempts to diffuse liberal ideas at the ASEAN level intensified only recently, after ASEAN announced its community-building projects; therefore, a systematic assessment of success at this point would be immature. Besides, successful policy transmission at the ASEAN level does not necessarily lead to successful policy adoption by member states. Rather, this article’s main goal has been to identify a part of the transfer process that has been neglected in the literature. While existing studies tend to emphasize the resistant and incompatible nature of ASEAN norms and institutions toward liberalization (regardless of the elites’ announced pursuit of a more liberal ASEAN), this paper suggests that those internal features of ASEAN do not always constrain the transfer of liberalism to the region. Rather, some of ASEAN’s routine practices tend to allow external transfer governments to have more room for their activities, whether intentionally or not.
Moreover, while the literature mainly focuses on ASEAN’s responses or actions in the diffusion of liberalism at the receiving end, this article complements it by illustrating how actors on the diffusing side perform and utilize opportunities within a given context. Examining the diffusing side in the local context can provide a better understanding of the bigger picture of the ongoing transfer of liberal ideas and policies in ASEAN.
Furthermore, it brings to attention the possibility that ASEAN elites’ collective practices may be able to complicate domestic liberalization, which each member state should address by providing liberal outsiders with another layer of legitimate space for engaging in regional matters. As ASEAN-level practices and institutions allow a more institutionalized engagement of liberal externals, participating in ASEAN’s regionalism could be more politically costly for member state elites who want to protect their domestic industries. Meanwhile, having ASEAN as an institutionalized learning space for liberal policies can also benefit other elites willing to push for faster liberalization of certain domestic industries, as they can mobilize stronger external and internal supporters from the platform when they have to manage domestic opposition. Notably, such possibilities may not come from the intentions of ASEAN elites or any careful design of their collective behaviours. Instead, they are unexpected outcomes of their everyday ASEAN diplomacy.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The author appreciates anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. This work was supported by the Sogang University Research Grant (201610111.01).
1
Amitav Acharya, “How ideas spread: Whose norms matter? Norm localization and institutional change in Asian regionalism,” International Organization 58, no. 2 (2004): 239–275.
2
Vinod K. Aggarwal and Jonathan T. Chow, “The perils of consensus: How ASEAN’s meta-regime undermines economic and environmental cooperation,” RSIS working paper 177 (Singapore: S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 2009).
3
Alice Ba, “Who’s socializing whom? Complex engagement in Sino-ASEAN relations,” The Pacific Review 19, no. 2 (2006): 157–179; Sarah Eaton and Richard Stubbs, “Is ASEAN powerful? Neo-realist versus constructivist approaches to power in Southeast Asia,” The Pacific Review 19, no. 2 (2006): 135–155; Ian Manners, “Normative power Europe: A contradiction in terms?” Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 235–258.
4
Kai He, “Institutional balancing and international relations theory: Economic interdependence and balance of power strategies in Southeast Asia,” European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 3 (2008): 489–518; Jürgen Rüland, “Southeast Asian regionalism and global governance: ‘Multilateral utility’ or ‘hedging utility’?” Contemporary Southeast Asia 33, no. 1 (2011): 83–112.
5
John D. Ciorciari, The Limits of Alignment: Southeast Asia and the Great Powers Since 1975 (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 2010); Evelyn Goh, “Great powers and hierarchical order in Southeast Asia,” International Security 32, no. 3 (2007/8): 113–157; He, “Institutional balancing.”
6
Amitav Acharya and See Seng Tan, “Betwixt balance and community: America, ASEAN and the security of Southeast Asia,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 6, no. 1 (2006): 37–59; Ba, “Who’s socializing whom?”
7
As of February 2016, ASEAN’s full DPs were Australia, Canada, China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia, and the USA.
8
9
Yoshifumi Fukunaga, “ASEAN’s leadership in the regional comprehensive economic partnership,” Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies 2 (2015): 103–115.
10
For selective deployment of non-interference norms, see Lee Jones, ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
12
EU Delegation, “EU-ASEAN.”
14
Alexandra Gheciu, “Security institutions as agents of socialization? NATO and the ‘New Europe,’” International Organization 59, no. 4 (2005): 973–1012.
15
Claudio M. Radaelli, “Policy transfer in the European Union: Institutional isomorphism as a source of legitimacy,” Governance 13, no. 1 (2000): 29.
16
Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, “The politics, power and pathologies of international organization,” International Organization 53, no. 4 (1999): 708.
17
18
CIMB ASEAN Research Institute, The ASEAN Community: The Status of Implementation, Challenges and Bottlenecks (Kuala Lumpur: CARI report, 2013).
19
David M. Jones and M. L. R Smith, “Making process, not progress: ASEAN and the evolving East Asian regional order,” International Security 32, no. 1 (2007): 148–184; Shaun Narine, “State sovereignty, political legitimacy and regional institutionalism in the Asia-Pacific,” The Pacific Review 17, no. 3 (2004): 423–450.
20
David Benson and Andrew Jordan, “What have we learned from policy transfer research? Dolowitz and March revisited,” Political Studies Review 9 (2011): 367.
21
The author follows the category and thematic subcategories that ASEAN employs to structure its tasks. See ASEAN’s organizational structure chart at 
(accessed 20 February 2016). The specific themes of the projects that aim for ASEAN market integration and liberalization include single markets, standards, customs, services, financial integration, investments, labour movements, competition, consumer protection, and intellectual property rights.
22
These thematic issues are categorized as sectoral development, which is separate from the “market integration” indicated in note 21. The specific themes for this stream include cooperation on tourism, agriculture, food, forestry, small- and medium-sized enterprises, transportation, information and communication technology, energy, and minerals.
23
24
Ibid.
25
29
Jennifer C. Wilson, “United States assistance to ASEAN through the ADVANCE programme,” in Pavin Chachavalpongpun, ed., ASEAN-US Relations: What are the Talking Points? (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2012), 115.
30
Ibid., 119–120.
31
United States Agency International Development, “ASEAN connectivity through trade and investment,” https://asean.usmission.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2016/04/ACTI-Trade-and-Investment_Dec-2015_FINAL.pdf (accessed 29 November 2017). Also, (accessed 29 November 2017).
32
Officer at a diplomatic mission to ASEAN, personal communication, 9 February 2016.
33
Alica Ba, “ASEAN centrality imperiled? ASEAN institutionalism and the challenges of major power institutionalization,” in Ralf Emmers, ed., ASEAN and the Institutionalization of East Asia (Oxon: Routledge, 2011), 122–137; Jones and Smith, “Making process.”
34
European Commission, Joint Communication, 7.
36
Peter M. Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination,” International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992): 1–35.
37
Martha Finnemore, “International organizations as teachers of norms: The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and science policy,” International Organization 47, no. 4 (1993): 565–597.
38
Diane Stone, “Transfer and translation of policy,” Policy Studies 33, no. 6 (2012): 488.
39
Emanuel Adler, “The spread of security communities: Communities of practice, self-restraint, and NATO’s post–Cold War transformation,” European Journal of International Relations 14, no. 2 (2008): 195–230; Alastair Iain Johnston, “Treating international institutions as social environments,” International Studies Quarterly 45, no. 4 (2001): 487–515.
40
Haas, “Introduction: Epistemic communities,” 4, 22, 32; Adler, “The spread of security communities”; Stone, “Transfer and translation,” 486.
Author Biography
Ki-Hyun Bae is assistant professor at the Institute for East Asian Studies at Sogang University, Seoul, Korea. Her research interest lies in the development of ASEAN and its integration, the external relations of ASEAN with its Dialogue Partners, and East Asian regionalism.