Challenges to ASEAN centrality and hedging in connectivity governance—regional and national pressure points

Abstract

Since 2010, ASEAN has made efforts to increase its coherence and visibility as an actor in regional infrastructure development, under the umbrella term of connectivity. Its most recent strategy, 2016’s Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025, is notable for its more focused agenda as well as a tableau of institutional innovations, including new policy coordination mechanisms and a project preparation pipeline. Nonetheless, ASEAN struggles to maintain coherence in the implementation of its connectivity agenda, both internally as well as towards its dialogue partners. Utilizing the concepts of centrality and hedging as parts of a unified theoretical framework, this paper analyzes ASEAN’s efforts to mobilize and manage external resources in connectivity. ASEAN’s resource dependence and its failure to establish institutional centrality creates issues at the regional and the national levels. Regionally, ASEAN’s lack of centrality and its perpetuation of ASEAN+1 relations have contributed to the emergence of contesting agendas and institutional frameworks by external actors. Nationally, the hedging strategies of ASEAN member states are at odds with the regional vision, highlighting a lack of intra-ASEAN coherence. The perpetuation of contesting institutional frameworks by external actors at the national level solidifies existing incoherence in ASEAN’s connectivity governance, further undermining its centrality. ASEAN’s efforts to assert centrality and execute a hedging strategy in connectivity are emblematic of its attempts to extend its reach into new policy areas, but also of its persistent governance constraints.

Keywords:

• ASEAN
• Centrality
• Connectivity
• Hedging
• Infrastructure
• Regionalism

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the German National Academic Scholarship Foundation. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies and the Habibie Center provided institutional support during two research visits to Jakarta in 2018 and 2019. I am grateful to Jürgen Rüland and Ingo Henneberg for their comments on previous versions of this paper, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Personal Communication, ASEAN Dialogue Partner, 16 February 2018.

2 Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States

3 Personal Communication, ASEAN Official, 12 April 2019.

4 Personal Communication, ASEAN Official, 19 March 2019; Personal Communication, ASEAN Official, 18 April 2019.

5 Personal Communication, ASEAN Dialogue Partner, 16 February 2018.

6 Personal Communication, ASEAN Dialogue Partner, 13 February 2018.

7 The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in trade; and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific and the Quadrilateral Dialogue in security.

8 Personal Communication, ASEAN Dialogue Partner, 16 February 2018.

9 Personal Communication, ASEAN Dialogue Partner, 14 February 2018.

10 Personal Communication, ASEAN Official, 22 February 2018.

Additional information

Funding

German National Academic Scholarship Foundation.

Notes on contributors

Lukas Maximilian Mueller

Lukas Maximilian Mueller is an affiliated researcher at the Chair of International Politics at the University of Freiburg, Germany, as well as a research associate at the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Erfurt, Germany.