Model power or reference point? The EU and the ASEAN Charter

Abstract

Several scholars have suggested that ASEAN's institutionalization can be attributed to the EU's influence as a ‘model power’. The notion of the EU as a model power is premised on the assumption and belief that Europe's history of regional cooperation presents a viable blueprint for other regions. This article argues that the EU exerts some power over ASEAN—but merely as a ‘reference point’. The EU's influence is not an active one; the organisation essentially serves as a passive reference point for ASEAN. The obvious and arguably most important example of this referencing is the framing of the ASEAN Charter in 2007. This article disagrees with scholars who reduce ASEAN's institutionalization to an imitation of the EU form without the substance. Instead, it shows how ASEAN has innovated as a regional organization through its Charter and Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission.

Notes

I would like to thank Anja Jetschke, Janice Mattern, Philomena Murray, Thomas Risse, Alex Warleigh-Lack andthree anonymous reviewers for theirhelpful comments andsuggestionson earlier drafts. Angelos Sepos deserves specialmention formooting the idea of this piece in the first place. The usual disclaimer applies.

¹ Recent accounts of and explanations for the proliferation of bodies and increasingly rule-based organization of ASEAN are varied. Kahler (2000) focuses on ‘legalization’ of the regional organization as a strategy to increase relevance; Jones and Smith (2002) and Jetschke (2009) both argue that ASEAN ‘imitates’ the EU's form but not its substance; Caballero-Anthony (2008) suggests that institutional development was an urgent necessity; Roberts (2010) suggests that it was a response to low state capacity in most ASEAN states; Khong and Nesadurai (2007) argue that institutional design in ASEAN results from the interplay between shared external threats and domestic politics.

² Taking ‘institutions’ to mean ‘a set of rules and norms pertaining to the region, its actors and its activities, that have regulative, constitutive and procedural functions’ (Duffield 2007, 2), then the long-term trend of ASEAN having more rules and norms through legal agreements and instruments over its member states’ economic, political and even human rights activities is a sure sign of the increasing importance of institutions in ASEAN's day-to-day functioning (Kahler 2000; Roberts 2010).

³ Over the years, this working group grew to become an informal coalition of individuals and groups working with government institutions and NGOs involved in the promotion and protection of human rights. See Caballero-Anthony (2005, 247).

⁴ Although, arguably, the extra-EU Council of Europe plays an even greater role, in cooperation with the European Court of Justice, in promoting and protecting norms and human rights in EU states.