In the Shadow of the Member States: Policy-Making Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat and Dialogue Partners 9811993858, 9789811993855

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CRITICAL STUDIES OF THE ASIA-PACIFIC SERIES EDITOR: MARK BEESON

In the Shadow of the Member States Policy-Making Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat and Dialogue Partners

Lukas Maximilian Müller

Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific

Series Editor Mark Beeson, Political Science & International Relations, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia

Critical Studies of the Asia Pacific showcases new research and scholarship on what is arguably the most important region in the world in the twenty-first century. The rise of China and the continuing strategic importance of this dynamic economic area to the United States mean that the Asia-Pacific will remain crucially important to policymakers and scholars alike. The unifying theme of the series is a desire to publish the best theoretically-informed, original research on the region. Titles in the series cover the politics, economics and security of the region, as well as focusing on its institutional processes, individual countries, issues and leaders. The book series is Scopus Indexed.

Lukas Maximilian Müller

In the Shadow of the Member States Policy-Making Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat and Dialogue Partners

Lukas Maximilian Müller Caritas Germany Freiburg, Germany

ISSN 2662-222X ISSN 2662-2238 (electronic) Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific ISBN 978-981-19-9385-5 ISBN 978-981-19-9386-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © PopTika/shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgments

This book benefitted from the help of many people. Jürgen Rüland, my supervisor, is responsible for stoking my interest in Southeast Asian regional politics. Without exposure to his research and more importantly, his teaching, I would never have pursued this project in the first place. I am also grateful to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, which sponsored my first trip to Southeast Asia in 2014, enabling me to write my master’s thesis on the region, which ultimately led to me pursuing a PhD on the same topic. Speaking of enablers, perhaps the most significant one was the scholarship provided by the German National Academic Foundation, which funded my research work from 2016 until 2019, including two research stays in Jakarta. I would also like to thank my colleagues at the University of Freiburg: Anne-Kathrin Weber, Arndt Michael, Stefan Rother, Ingo Henneberg, Christian von Lübke, Tim Krieger, Martin Adelmann, Astrid Carrapatoso, Anna Fünfgeld, Andreas Mehler, and Benedikt Kamski all provided crucial advice at various stages of this project. In Jakarta, I am particularly indebted to Timo Goosmann (Embassy of Germany), Dhannan Sunoto (DAI), Jörg Meier (Altair Asesores), Alex Chandra (The Habibie Center, ASEAN Secretariat), Tim Buehrer (Nathan Inc.), and Julia Schulte (Embassy of Germany) for their help. For institutional support, I thank the Centre for Strategic and International Studies as well as the Habibie Center for hosting me. A big thanks to Gerrit Gonschorek, Patrick Ziegenhain, Carly Gordyn, Aan Permana, v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Hana Hanifah Bastaman, Natassa Irena Agam, Muhamad Arif, and Christine Susanna Tjhin for their insights on Indonesian politics and society, and great company. I am also grateful to Natthanan Kunnamas (Chulalongkorn University), Sanae Suzuki (University of Tokyo), Mie Oba (Kanagawa University), Caixia Mao (Columbia University), and Angela Aguinaldo (Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law) for the fruitful academic exchanges over the years. I would like to also thank Grazyna Pulawska (Asia-Europe Foundation) and Trang Nguyen (Hanns Seidel Foundation) for being excellent colleagues and friends in the other half of my professional life during this project. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this book would have never been possible without the collaboration of the staff of the ASEAN Secretariat as well as the representatives of ASEAN member states, dialogue partners, and other external actors. I am grateful for the trust and collaboration extended to me.

About This Book

This book addresses interrelated research gaps on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): the role of the ASEAN Secretariat, the contributions of ASEAN’s dialogue partners, and the member states’ relations to both actors. Drawing from a variety of never-before analyzed sources, including unpublished documents on ASEAN as well as over 80 interviews with ASEAN Secretariat staff, ASEAN member state representatives, and external actors supporting the organization, this book provides detailed insights into the actors’ varied contributions to policy making in the ASEAN Economic Community as well as the ASEAN Political-Security Community, for instance in competition policy or in counterterrorism. A detailed assessment of agency in agenda setting, formulation, decision making, implementation, and monitoring provides specific insights on interactions, outputs, challenges, and opportunities in modern-day regional policy making in Southeast Asia.

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Praise for In the Shadow of the Member States

“This book challenges the conventional understanding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), arguing that when ASEAN is understood to be an open system, the extent of its Secretariat’s autonomy and authority can be seen more clearly. In addition, the book provides unparalleled empirical evidence for the argument that, by providing financial support, external actors influence policy making. While firmly grounded in ASEAN, insights from this book can contribute to the comparative analysis of policy making in regional organizations throughout the Global South.” —Sanae Suzuki, The University of Tokyo, Japan “In the Shadow of the Member States is a deeply researched and comprehensive book on two pillars of the ASEAN Community, the ASEAN Secretariat, and the workings of ASEAN’s Dialogue Partner relations. Southeast Asia’s economic dynamism creates a mutual attraction and benefit for ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners, ably captured in this book. In the post COVID-19 world, and against the backdrop of US-China trade tensions, this book may be helpful in understanding the pathways leading to ASEAN’s role in the emerging economic, political, and security alignments in Southeast and East Asia.” —Anita Prakash, Senior Policy Advisor, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, Indonesia

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PRAISE FOR IN THE SHADOW OF THE MEMBER STATES

“ASEAN has long drawn large scholarly attention and become an important topic in understanding regional institutions as well as regionalism. However, the agencies within ASEAN, particularly the ASEAN Secretariat, are too often neglected. Lukas Müller clearly depicts the dynamics of ASEAN’s internal policy-making through numerous interviews, exploring how the Secretariat interacts with the member states and dialogue partners and plays a role in shaping institutional policies. This empirically rich and theoretically innovative book is a welcome addition to the research on ASEAN and a must-read book for those who study ASEAN and Southeast Asia.” —Kei Koga, School of Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore “Lukas Müller provides an important contribution to our understanding of the inner workings of an organization whose influence on current regional and world affairs remains misunderstood and underestimated. A must read for anyone looking to know more about how ASEAN, its key bodies and external partnerships actually work in practice from a policy perspective, beyond blanket statements about their ineffectiveness.” —Stéphanie Martel, Department of Political Studies, Queen’s University, Canada “This monograph is a significant contribution, not only to the study of ASEAN itself but, also, to the burgeoning field of comparative regionalism studies. In his analysis of the actorness of member states, dialogue partners and the ASEAN Secretariat, Lukas Müller addresses a real lacuna in our understanding of ASEAN, namely the role, motivations and views of the trans-national public servants and non-state actors who ensure the day-to-day functioning of a regional organization. By lifting the veil on their interactions with governments and administrations of ASEAN"s member states, this study deepens our understanding of the oldest, and arguably, most significant regional organization in the Global South.” —David Camroux, Sciences Po Paris, France

Contents

1

2

Introduction 1.1 ASEAN’s Institutional Dynamics 1.2 ASEAN’s External Relations 1.3 Research Interest and Approach 1.4 Analyzing ASEAN’s Regional Governance as Policy-Making Agency in an Open System 1.4.1 Agency by ASEAN Member States 1.4.2 Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat 1.4.3 Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners 1.5 Assessing Member State, Secretariat, and Dialogue Partner Policy-Making Agency—The Policy Cycle 1.5.1 Agenda Setting 1.5.2 Formulation 1.5.3 Decision Making 1.5.4 Implementation 1.5.5 Monitoring 1.6 Structure of this Book References Casting Shadows: ASEAN Member States, the Secretariat, and Dialogue Partners 2.1 Member States and the Secretariat 2.1.1 A Brief History of the ASEAN Secretariat 2.1.2 The Secretariat’s Mandate through the Years

1 4 8 10 13 16 18 19 21 21 22 23 24 25 25 26 39 40 42 45 xi

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CONTENTS

2.1.3

The Secretariat’s Organizational Design through the Years 2.1.4 Interaction Practices between Member States and the Secretariat 2.1.5 Interactions with Sectoral Bodies 2.1.6 Interactions with the Committee of Permanent Representatives 2.2 Member States and the Dialogue Partners 2.2.1 ASEAN’s External Environment 2.2.2 ASEAN’s Partner Management Strategies 2.3 Summary References 3

4

5

48 53 54 62 64 65 67 72 73

The Involved Networker: Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Economic Community 3.1 The ASEAN Economic Community 3.2 Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the AEC 3.2.1 Agenda Setting 3.2.2 Formulation 3.2.3 Implementation 3.2.4 Monitoring 3.3 Summary References

77 78 80 85 87 92 94 99 100

Policy-Making Support: Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the ASEAN Economic Community 4.1 External Relations and Policy Making in the AEC 4.2 Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the AEC 4.2.1 Agenda Setting 4.2.2 Formulation 4.2.3 Implementation 4.2.4 Monitoring 4.3 Summary References

103 104 110 114 116 119 123 126 126

The Involved Networker: Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Political-Security Community 5.1 The ASEAN Political-Security Community 5.2 Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the APSC 5.2.1 Agenda Setting

129 130 133 136

CONTENTS

6

7

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5.2.2 Formulation 5.2.3 Implementation 5.2.4 Monitoring 5.3 Summary References

138 142 143 146 147

Policy-Making Support: Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the ASEAN Political-Security Community 6.1 External Relations and Policy Making in the APSC 6.2 Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the APSC 6.2.1 Agenda Setting 6.2.2 Formulation 6.2.3 Implementation 6.2.4 Monitoring 6.3 Summary References

149 150 154 157 160 163 164 165 166

Conclusion: Entangled Agency—Member States, Secretariat, Dialogue Partners, and Collaborative Policy Making 7.1 Understanding Entangled Agency—Implications for Future Research on and Engagement with ASEAN 7.2 Beyond ASEAN—Regionalism in the Global South as an Open System References

Appendix

169 172 175 177 179

About the Author

Lukas Maximilian Müller is the advisor for the Lake Chad Region at Caritas Germany. He was previously a research associate at the University of Freiburg. He was also a visiting fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and at the Habibie Center, both in Jakarta, in 2018 and 2019, respectively.

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Abbreviations

ACTI ACTS ADMM ADMM-Plus ADVANCE AEC AFTA AICHR AIMD AIMO AIPA AMM AMMTC APRIS APSC ARF ARISE ASCC ASEAN ASEANstats ASEC ASSIST ASW ATR CEPT

ASEAN Connectivity Through Trade and Investment ASEAN Customs Transit System ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus ASEAN Development Vision to Advance National Cooperation and Economic Integration ASEAN Economic Community ASEAN Free Trade Agreement ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate ASEAN Integration Monitoring Office ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime ASEAN-EU Programme for Regional Integration Support ASEAN Political-Security Community ASEAN Regional Forum ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the European Union ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Association of Southeast Asian Nations ASEAN Statistics Division ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Solutions for Investments, Services, and Trade ASEAN Single Window ASEAN Trade Repository Common Effective Preferential Tariff xvii

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ABBREVIATIONS

CLMV COMPASS Coreper CPL CPR DSG EAS ECOWAS E-READI EU FTA GAP-CC GIZ HLTF IAI IGNITE INTERPOL LSAD PROGRESS PROSPECT RCEP READI RO SAFT SEANWFZ SG SOM SOMTC TAC UN US UNODC USAID WTO ZOPFAN

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam Capacity Building Project for Monitoring Integration Progress and Statistics Committee of Permanent Representatives Competition Policy and Law in ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representatives Deputy Secretary-General East Asia Summit Economic Community of West African States Enhanced Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument European Union Free Trade Agreement ASEAN-German Programme on Response to Climate Change Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit High-Level Task Force Initiative for ASEAN Integration Inclusive Growth in ASEAN through Innovation, Trade, and ECommerce International Criminal Police Organization Legal Services and Agreements Division Partnership for Good Governance, Equitable and Sustainable Development and Security Partnership for Regional Optimization with the Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Communities Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument Regional Organization Standards in the South-East Asian Food Trade Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Secretary-General Senior Officials’ Meeting Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime Treaty of Amity and Cooperation United Nations United States United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime US Agency for International Development World Trade Organization Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

2.1 2.2 2.3 3.1 3.2

Fig. 4.1 Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 7.1

Closed and open systems perspective on ASEAN Interactions between ASEAN member states, Secretariat, and dialogue partners Organization chart of the ASEAN Secretariat Sectoral bodies in the ASEAN Economic Community Sectoral bodies in the ASEAN Political-Security Community Administrative entities investigated Contribution of the ASEAN Secretariat to the AEC policy process Character of institutional support to ASEAN Administrative entities investigated Contribution of the ASEAN Secretariat to the APSC policy process Character of institutional support to ASEAN Presence of agency by ASEAN member states, Secretariat, and dialogue partners in the AEC and the APSC

14 16 51 56 57 83 84 110 135 136 155 171

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 2.1

Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 6.1

Studies on ASEAN regional institutions Total dialogue partner contributions to ASEAN from beginning of the relationships until October 2013 (US$) (Nair, 2015) Overview of external funds provided to the AEC after 2008 (selection) Activities supported by the ARISE project (2012–2017) (selection) Overview of external funds provided to the APSC after 2008 (selection)

7

66 105 113 152

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

One of the most significant political features of the Southeast Asian region has been the persistence of regional cooperation through its regional organization (RO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). With its ten member states, ASEAN is one of the most well-researched ROs worldwide, noted for its success in managing inter-state conflict in the region (Glas, 2017), as well as for establishing an East Asian system of political-security institutions (Acharya, 2001; Emmers, 2011). Over time, scholars have had a keen interest in ASEAN, particularly its progress as a political-security (Caballero-Anthony, 2020; Emmers, 2017; Martel, 2022) and economic community (Dosch, 2013; Hew, 2010). A variety of articles and monographs have been published on the cooperation norms of the organization (Haacke, 2003), the policy areas covered by regional cooperation, and the effects the organization has had on its member states (Caballero-Anthony, 1998; Collins, 2018; M. Davies, 2013; Deinla, 2017; L. Jones, 2012). While early research frequently compared ASEAN to the EU, more recent articles fortunately recognize the idiosyncratic nature of the organization (Acharya, 2009; Rüland, 2017). Besides being one of the most well-researched regional organizations in the world, ASEAN is also one of the most frequently criticized. The primary criticism leveled against ASEAN is that despite public declarations of institutional change and reform, the organization continues to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_1

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suffer from fundamental constraints in its cooperation norms, resulting in what is essentially non-consequential regional cooperation. Scholars have accused ASEAN of being more concerned with diplomatic “process” than substantial “progress” (D. M. Jones & Smith, 2007; Sukma, 2008). The lack of substantial policies adopted by the organization since the ASEAN Charter of 2008 has been seen as a major flaw, with ASEAN risking a slide into irrelevancy as a result (Acharya, 2018). Its regional institutions are widely seen as being dominated by the member states, with their focus on intergovernmentalism and non-intervention posing a limitation to more substantial regional cooperation (Beeson, 2020; Stubbs, 2019). Meanwhile, its regional institutions, including its Secretariat, are seen as weak at best. This diagnosis of a “frustrated” regionalism (Nair, 2009) is puzzling given the relative sophistication of Southeast Asian regional institutions, as well as the de facto progress that has been observed within the organization over the last two decades. Upon closer inspection, it is clear that there has been significant institutional and substantial progress within the organization since the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2008. Strategic plans have proliferated under ASEAN’s Political-Security (APSC), Economic (AEC), and Socio-Cultural Community (ASSC) pillars, with many of them surpassing previous documents in specificity and scope. Institutional changes have also taken place. While the organization remains intergovernmental in nature, scholars have noted various creeping processes of institutional empowerment (Müller, 2021a; Wong, 2014). Until today, however, very few studies have analyzed this progress in policy making or the change in ASEAN’s institutional dynamics following the adoption of the charter. This lack of insight extends to interactions between member states and the ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) as well as the role of other ASEAN institutions such as the sectoral bodies and the Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR). A second gap is the current state of ASEAN’s dialogue partnerships and their effect on the organization, including its regional institutions and policies. The 2000s and 2010s saw a wealth of studies analyzing ASEAN’s external partnerships, with a particular focus on the engagement with the European Union (EU) under the guise of interregionalism (Allison, 2015; Camroux, 2010; Doidge, 2011; Jetschke & Portela, 2013). Scholars have also been interested in ASEAN’s relations with great powers within its region, focusing particularly on China and the United States (US), but also others, particularly in the security sphere (Goh, 2005; Limaye, 2007;

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Swee-Hock et al., 2005). In recent years, it appears as if such studies have reached conceptual limits, with most insights about the character and effects of these partnerships well-established. Until today, however, we still lack knowledge about how these partnerships actually affect the organization, at the level of institutions as well as policies. It is unclear to which degree dialogue partners have contributed to the post-charter changes in policy making and institutional interactions observed within ASEAN. I contend that the lack of up-to-date research on substantial policy making within ASEAN, its institutional interplay, and the impact of dialogue partnerships all speak to the same shortcoming in the research on the organization: a continued focus on the intergovernmental dimension of policy making within ASEAN without due attention to other players acting in the shadow of the member states. Particularly, the agency of the ASEAN Secretariat and that of ASEAN’s dialogue partners have been neglected, resulting in an artificial limitation of the academic debate on the organization. Due to a lack of academic attention on these entities, research on ASEAN has also been deprived of potential sources of information, perspectives, and opinions on the organization beyond those of the member states. ASEAN remains characterized by the networked nature of its regional policy making, consisting of a hierarchy of pillarized (under the APSC, AEC, and ASCC) as well as vertically differentiated intergovernmental bodies. A sound assessment of the organization must, therefore, include a view of the relevant member state bodies. Their disaggregation has led to a notable diversification in institutional practices and successes, making blanket statement about what ASEAN is and what ASEAN does difficult, if not impossible. Beyond simply conceptualizing ASEAN member states as governments, more attention needs to be paid to their role in ASEAN’s intergovernmental formats, specifically the sectoral bodies and the CPR. When looking towards agency by the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN’s dialogue partners in the shadow of the member states, it is particularly important to understand the member states’ tools and strategies to manage and control their internal and external relations. The Secretariat’s main role remains to facilitate work by ASEAN’s member states, ensuring that the organization operates smoothly (Nair, 2015). Still, there are signs auguring a more significant role for ASEC. Given ASEAN’s highly disaggregated nature, an analysis of Secretariat agency should capture the bureaucracy’s diverse roles in different policy

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areas and stages of policy making. Instead of falsely assuming the development of supranational structures in Southeast Asia, it is important to grasp the idiosyncratic nature of ASEAN’s institutions to understand their current role in the organization’s policy-making processes. The dialogue partners have been mainly conceptualized as diplomatic counterparts to ASEAN, but a major feature of these partnerships has been financial support to ASEAN’s intergovernmental processes and institutional entities. Studies suggest that this support’s impact on ASEAN may be more significant than commonly appreciated (Doidge, 2011; Martin, 2009; Pietrangeli, 2009). To better understand the interactions between ASEAN and the dialogue partners, it is important to conceptualize ASEAN’s external relations in a collective sense, instead of focusing on individual bilateral relationships. In addition, these relationships must be captured as mutually constitutive, with both ASEAN and the dialogue partners active in shaping them. To open up a window into agency by ASEAN member states, the ASEAN Secretariat, and ASEAN’s dialogue partners in policy making, this book will employ a framework consisting of policy studies, specifically the policy cycle (Cohen et al., 1972; Lasswell, 1956) combined with an open systems perspective (Scott, 2003). This will allow for a parallel investigation of the two research gaps and contribute to an opening of the discussion on ASEAN as a policy-producing regional organization. Over the following sections, both the background and the approach of this book will be elaborated. First, Sect. 1.1 will illustrate the state of research on ASEAN’s institutional dynamics and the role of the Secretariat. Section 1.2 then focuses on ASEAN’s external relations and dialogue partners’ role in regional policy making. The two sections cumulate in Sect. 1.3, which outlines the book’s research interest and approach. Section 1.4 outlines the theoretical framework used to analyze agency by member states, the Secretariat, and dialogue partners in ASEAN as an open system. Section 1.5 looks at the policy cycle as a heuristic to investigate agency by the three entities analyzed. The chapter closes with an overview of the structure of the book (1.6).

1.1

ASEAN’s Institutional Dynamics

The first empirical gap this book focuses on is that of policy making within ASEAN, specifically member state-Secretariat interactions in policy making. As one of the most well-researched regional organizations in the world, there is a large amount of research on ASEAN (Dosch, 2013;

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5

Kng, 1990; Reinalda, 2012; Roberts, 2012), on themes such as security (Caballero-Anthony, 2004, 2008, 2020; S. E. Davies et al., 2014; Martel, 2022), human rights (Collins, 2018; M. Davies, 2013), rule of law (Caballero-Anthony, 1998; Deinla, 2017; Gerard, 2018), the environment (Nguitragool, 2010, 2011), and economic integration (Hew, 2010; Pente, 2014; Ravenhill, 2008; Stubbs, 2000). Most studies, however, focus solely on the intergovernmental dimension of regionalism, giving less attention to its regional institutions, their function, and interplay. As interest in regional organizations outside the European Union began to emerge (Fawcett, 2008), ASEAN immediately became the focus of many scholars’ attention. ASEAN has mainly been noted for its idiosyncratic type of intergovernmental relations, codified in the ASEAN Way, which is characterized by the principles of sovereign equality, non-intervention, non-interference, quiet diplomacy, mutual respect, and non-involvement of ASEAN in bilateral issues between member states (Haacke, 2003). The origins of ASEAN as an organization have been described as dual objectives: the prevention of conflicts within the region as well as the management of external powers (Haacke, 2003). ASEAN was widely seen as outdated and sclerotic by the time of the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) in the late 1990s (Rüland, 2010). What followed was a concerted effort by ASEAN to reassert the centrality and functioning of the organization, a process that cumulated in the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, which was interpreted as injecting new substance into Southeast Asian regionalism (Tiwari, 2010). Another concurrent trend has been ASEAN’s move towards increasing regional economic integration, beginning with the ASEAN Free Trade Area in 1992 (Ravenhill, 1995) and most recently culminating in plans for an ASEAN Economic Community. It is fair to say that currently the strongest impetus for regional integration stems from the economic sector (Dosch, 2013). Surprisingly, given the wealth of research on ASEAN, the scholarly community still lacks a sound understanding of how different entities interact within the organization to make policies. Part of this can be chalked up to ASEAN’s opaque nature, but the research gap is also related to a lack of focus on institutional interactions within ASEAN. It is clear that member states continue to dominate in policy making within the organization. We know that ASEAN deliberates on policies through its more than 300 vertically and horizontally differentiated intergovernmental bodies in its three sectors, the economic, political-security, and sociocultural communities. What we know less about is how this policy

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making works in practice. One major study on ASEAN identifies “network governance” as the prevailing mode of policy making within the organization (Jetschke, 2009). It remains unclear how network governance works in practice. Omisakin (2013) rightly notes that we still now fairly little about how decisions are actually taken within ASEAN and which actors are actually involved in policy-making processes. A concerning development has been the recent emergence of a significant body of scholarly work focusing on ASEAN’s role as a ritualistic community, engaging primarily in political ceremony (M. Davies, 2018; Gamas, 2014), and providing venues for the socialization of member states (Nair, 2015, 2019). While this research certainly captures something true about the organization, it downplays ASEAN’s value as a venue for substantial political dialogue and agreement. This is concerning because there has in fact been a development of significant policies within ASEAN since the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, albeit only in selected policy areas and involving particular intergovernmental bodies. Since 2007, the member states have signed 20 new agreements within the economic pillar, as well as 61 protocols amending existing agreements— as well as four in the political-security pillar during the same period. Concurrent with this growth in documents with legal character, ASEAN has also, since 2007, begun to formulate pillar-wide strategies, the socalled blueprints, which contain much more concrete commitments than previous regional agreements. A number of authors have also observed changes in ASEAN’s normative framework and coordination processes, with ASEAN member states increasingly finding ways to become involved in other member states. Various euphemistic terms such as “constructive engagement” and “flexible engagement” (Haacke, 1999; Katsumata, 2004) have been used to describe what has in fact been intervention in the sovereignty of member states (L. Jones, 2012). Understanding these developments within ASEAN requires us to take the organization seriously as an entity concerned with policy making, consisting of multiple distinctive actors, going beyond simple analyses of member state interests and intergovernmental interactions. The question then is, what other entities may be analyzed beyond the member states. There is a small number of studies on ASEAN institutions. Table 1.1 shows that beyond ASEAN’s executive dialogues, the primary institutions analyzed are the ASEAN Interparliamentary Assembly (AIPA) and the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights (AICHR). The distinction between both of these institutions and the member states

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Table 1.1 Studies on ASEAN regional institutions ASEAN institutions analyzed

Studies

Secretariat ASEAN Interparliamentary Assembly (AIPA)

Nair (2015) Deinla (2013), Rüland (2013), Rüland and Bechle (2014) Jetschke (2015), Kraft (2012), Munro (2011), Renshaw (2019), H.-L. Tan (2011)

ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights (AICHR)1

that control their membership is fuzzy, and both forums are less noted for their institutional independence from ASEAN than for the way in which they remain subordinate to ASEAN’s member states (Kraft, 2012; Munro, 2011). Surprisingly, the ASEAN Secretariat remains a rarely researched topic. Looking at the questions raised about ASEAN’s policy-making patterns and the role of institutions, the agency of the ASEAN Secretariat is an obvious question. Given the diminutive role of the Secretariat in Southeast Asian regionalism, most analyses of ASEAN have considered the Secretariat only on the sidelines (Emmerson, 2007), if at all. Only one available study has a distinctive focus on the ASEAN Secretariat as an institution (Nair, 2015). While Nair has established a convincing narrative of the Secretariat as a primarily ritualistic actor, there is some evidence that the institution actually plays a more significant role in policy making than commonly appreciated (Reinalda, 2012; Wong, 2014). Some theorists speak of creeping supranationalism (Wong, 2014), according to which the Secretariat has increasingly taken on planning activities and oftentimes influences the member states (Reinalda, 2012). As the oldest organizational structure in Southeast Asian regionalism, agency by the ASEAN Secretariat is an obvious empirical question. Established in 1981 as an essentially powerless bureaucracy, it was derisively called a “glorified post office” (Interview 10), with its task being to “keep the paper moving” (Weatherbee, 2014, p. 101). Prior to the establishment of the ASEAN Charter, but particularly after its adoption, calls were made for a strengthening of ASEAN’s Secretariat. Many observers of

1 AICHR is technically an intergovernmental format, but it is not exclusively made up of government representatives, which is why it is listed here.

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the institution highlighted pockets of effectiveness within the bureaucracy (Interview 10; Interview 3), indicating the value of a focused analysis. Obviously, an isolated analysis of the Secretariat does not carry much value, given the imposing nature of the member states in regional policymaking processes. Over time, the bureaucracy has evolved in line with the intergovernmental architecture of the organization. For this reason, the ASEAN Secretariat must be analyzed in tandem with the institutional structures it relates to, namely ASEAN’s sectoral bodies, the CPR, and national-level political processes.

1.2

ASEAN’s External Relations

The second empirical gap this book focuses on is the relevance and impact of ASEAN’s external relations on the organization’s policy-making processes. Just as with ASEAN’s internal dynamics, there is a wealth of research on its links with the outside world (Fehrmann, 2014; Gyngell, 1982; Lim, 2012; Müller, 2021b; Portela, 2013; Thambipillai, 1980; Wunderlich, 2012). Still, we only have little understanding of how external actors concretely engage with ASEAN on policy-relevant issues, and vice versa. From its beginning, ASEAN has been set up with the aim of engaging with external actors (Haacke, 2003). For a long time, many observers judged the organization to be more concerned with external relations than with its own internal processes (D. M. Jones & Smith, 2007). ASEAN’s success in handling the presence of powerful actors such as China and the US in its region has been seen as a major achievement (Beeson, 2013). Over the years, ASEAN has become known as a builder of a regional institutional architecture. East Asian regional institutions all center on ASEAN and are based on the principles of the ASEAN Way, a phenomenon that has been labeled ASEAN centrality (Caballero-Anthony, 2014). The most notable are the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS). ASEAN follows a slightly different strategy in trade, concluding a number of ASEAN+1 free trade agreements (FTAs) complemented with regional forums such as the ASEAN+3 (APT) (Suzuki, 2004). The success of ASEAN in constructing a regional institutional architecture in East Asia, however, has been seen as limited to a spread in the scope and membership of regional forums, but not necessarily in their depth of cooperation.

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Beyond its role in international forums, bilateral relationships also matter to ASEAN. The organization has long-standing relationships with actors such as the US, Australia, Japan, China, and even Russia (Goh, 2007). Today, ASEAN has 21 formalized partnerships, as well as diplomatic relations with more than 90 states. Its most significant relationships are those to its dialogue partners, namely Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia, the UK, and the US. While most of these relationships consist of dialogue and exchange, many of them also include financial and institutional support to ASEAN. To take one example, the EU contributed e70 million to ASEAN from 2007 to 2014, a sum that rose to e170 million from 2014 to 2020 (European Commission, 2015). Such external funding of ASEAN likely does not get sufficient attention. A branch of research that has tackled the question of external funding and influence is interregionalism. A handful of studies on interregional cooperation with ASEAN have considered the impact of support programs on the organization (Allison, 2015; Doidge, 2007; Martin, 2009; Pietrangeli, 2009). Two studies (Martin, 2009; Pietrangeli, 2009) describe the content of these programs but they fall short of a proper analysis. In general, these programs appear to be marred by misunderstandings (Rüland, 2015), which is likely due to a lack of analysis of the inner workings of ASEAN and their actual potential for impact. Many studies presume an influence of external relations on ASEAN, such as the transfer of EU-style institutional structures (Jetschke, 2009; Lenz, 2012b; Murray & Moxon-Browne, 2013; Rüland & Bechle, 2014; Wong, 2012), often without convincing empirical proof. External institutional support is frequently mentioned in such studies as a potential mechanism for external influence on ASEAN and other ROs in the Global South (Jetschke, 2013; Lenz & Burilkov, 2017; Lombaerde & Schulz, 2009). This is a tempting idea, frequently bought into by external actors. When asked about the EU’s dialogues with ASEAN and what kind of advice the EU provides, an EU diplomat responded that “We are not saying that central institutions are the only way, but we are saying it’s the way that has worked for us” (Interview 83). While some studies have theorized causal processes of how external support may impact ROs (Duina & Lenz, 2016; Lenz, 2012b), there is an almost complete lack of empirical studies illustrating the mechanisms through which this external support is received and how it affects ASEAN. The role of ASEAN in managing this influence is still largely unexplored. This is despite the fact

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that there is a long-standing literature on ASEAN resisting the transfer of policy ideas from the Global North, or at least localizing them (Acharya, 1998, 2009; Rüland, 2012). Some interregionalism studies have been more nuanced in their assessment of interactions between ASEAN and its counterparts, for instance in non-traditional security and human rights (Maier-Knapp, 2015; Schembera, 2016), or in a more general sense (Allison, 2015; Doidge, 2011). These studies, however, have been overly concerned with the EU as an actor, and neglect the importance of other dialogue partners. Given the relatively subordinate role of the EU in relations with ASEAN (Müller, 2021b), this risks neglecting agency by other actors. Actors like the US, Japan, Australia, and others, all support the organization significantly, often more substantially than the EU does. When analyzing the role of ASEAN’s external partnerships on the organization’s policy-making processes, it makes sense to begin with those relationships that are the closest—those of the 11 dialogue partners. As in the case of the Secretariat, we must view these relationships in the context of the institutions and mechanisms that ASEAN member states have set up to manage them, namely the sectoral bodies and the CPR.

1.3

Research Interest and Approach

Several unanswered questions remain concerning ASEAN’s internal policy-making dynamics as well as external relations. While the two research strands may initially seem rather unconnected, issues like the relationship between the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN’s member states, as well as the impact of external institutional support and ASEAN’s management of its external relations, are in fact much more closely related than it may initially appear. Ultimately, they all concern the agency of non-member state entities within ASEAN. To gain more substantial insight into the questions raised above and tie a common thread through their analysis, I suggest taking an inclusive view of internal and external relations to assess their respective impact on policy making within ASEAN. Obviously, both the agency by the Secretariat and that of dialogue partners must be tied to that of member states, which remain the primary agents within ASEAN. Still, such an analysis must go beyond conceptualizing ASEAN as a simple conglomerate of member states and take stock of other member state-led institutions, structures, and mechanisms. Finally, a focus on specific policy areas may

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narrow down the research agenda sufficiently to allow for such analysis in detail. Economic and political-security cooperation, two central policy areas within ASEAN, are obvious choices for such an analysis. This book seeks to answer the following research question: How does the agency of ASEAN member states, the ASEAN Secretariat, and ASEAN’s dialogue partners interact to influence regional policy making in the ASEAN Economic and Political-Security Communities?

This question can be disaggregated into three parts (1) How do member states engage in policy making with their Secretariat and the dialogue partners? (2) How does the Secretariat engage in policy making with member states and dialogue partners? (3) How do dialogue partners engage in policy making with member states and the Secretariat? This study makes an empirical contribution through a first-time in-depth analysis of the agency and interplay of ASEAN member states with the Secretariat as well as dialogue partners, based on extensive field research and the collection of more than 80 interviews with ASEAN stakeholders. Another unique contribution of this study is a detailed analysis of the contents of several dialogue partner support projects and the strategies they employ to contribute to policy making in ASEAN. In addition, this book contributes theoretically through the application of policy-making agency as a lens on states, bureaucracies, and other political entities. This highlights the interconnectedness of research on regional organizations’ internal and external relations, and the entangled nature of policy making in ROs operating as open systems. To gather empirical data for this project, fieldwork was carried out, consisting of a four-month stay in Jakarta, Indonesia, from January to May 2018 and another three-month stay from January to April 2019. Both visits focused on the ASEAN Secretariat, the member states, and the dialogue partners present in Jakarta. Fieldwork was carried out with the aim of conducting interviews as well as procuring documents about the Secretariat and dialogue partner relations. From the beginning, interviews were conducted with Secretariat staff, member state representatives, and actors representing third countries. In addition, interviews were

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carried out with staff from development agencies, members of think tanks, academic researchers, and other institutional observers. During the early stages of the research visits, interview partners were identified through a snowballing strategy (Babbie, 1995), relying on personal referrals in a set of departments identified within the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as external entities engaged with ASEAN. Once I obtained sufficient information regarding the Secretariat’s organizational structure, I drew up systematic interview plans, attempting to interview most technical staff in the relevant directorates. In addition, all member state and dialogue partner delegations were approached for interviews. Separate interview guidelines were developed for each actor group and shared with the interviewees prior to the interview. A total of 84 interviews were carried out.2 Beyond this approach, I also relied on within-as well as cross-organizational referrals, asking external actors and ASEAN staff, as well as other interviewees, for additional relevant conversation partners, with the aim of reducing sample bias (Tansey, 2007). Interviews resulted in hand-written conversation notes which were later transferred to digital documents. The interview data was analyzed using a qualitative analysis software tool, MAXQDA. The program is a coding tool, which allows for the classification of statements made during interviews according to categories. Using the policy cycle model, statements made by ASEAN Secretariat staff, dialogue partners, and member state representatives were analyzed for their views of policy making and the agency of various actors. The coding allowed for an inductive summarization of oral histories of the internal policy-making processes of ASEAN as well as patterns and effects of external institutional support. The next section will outline the theoretical approach of this book, illustrating how ASEAN’s regional governance is analyzed as public policy. ASEAN is understood as an open system in which member states, the Secretariat, and dialogue partners all exhibit agency, resulting in interactions at various stages of policy making.

2 For a complete overview of the people interviewed, see the list of interviewees at the end of this book.

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1.4 Analyzing ASEAN’s Regional Governance as Policy-Making Agency in an Open System This book is about the interplay of agency of ASEAN member states, their Secretariat, as well as ASEAN’s dialogue partners. The aim of this study is, therefore, to develop and apply a theoretical framework that allows us to grasp the potential agency of different types of actors simultaneously engaging in similar processes. This study makes two main theoretical propositions: (1) ASEAN operates as an open system, with member states, the Secretariat, and dialogue partners all capable of exercising policymaking agency in idiosyncratic ways, and (2) policy-making agency may be assessed for all three actors by analyzing their contributions along the policy cycle. The first proposition of this study is that ASEAN should not be understood as a closed policy system in which member states deliberate among themselves or at most interact with their Secretariat. Instead, the organization operates as an open system, in which policy impulses can emerge or contributions be made from a number of sources, including member states, the Secretariat, and the dialogue partners. Figure 1.1 illustrates the difference between a closed and an open systems perspective. The concept of organizations as open systems first emerged in sociological studies (Scott, 2003), which view organizations as engaged in exchange relationships with their external environment. Meyer and Rowan (1977) established that the internal structures of organizations are loosely coupled in the sense that they are variable and may autonomously engage other entities in their external environment. An open systems perspective allows the simultaneous investigation and linking of organizations’ internal and external relations and activities (Koch, 2012). This challenges the understanding of organizations as unified entities governed purely by internal dynamics. Organizations may be embedded in their environment in different ways depending on the external environment they inhabit, their institutional structures, or the objectives they pursue. Literature on international organizations has already taken note of this approach (Jönsson, 1986), but the literature on ASEAN largely persists with a closed system view. This is despite the fact that an open systems perspective is actually particularly meaningful for organizations in the Global South, which are characterized by a large degree of resource dependence and are more strongly affected by the realities of an asymmetric international system. ASEAN, an organization that has

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long been noted for its effective management of external powers, poses an interesting case for an analysis in an open system sense. As a loosely integrated group of states with varying levels of coherence as a regional bloc or caucus (Nguitragool & Rüland, 2015), relying on the restraint or constraint of external powers for the persistence of a stable regional order (Ba, 2009, 2011; S. S. Tan, 2017), ASEAN represents a type of open system characterized by elaborate relationship management practices by member states. The second proposition of this book is that a policy studies perspective, specifically that of the policy cycle, can be used to investigate agency by ASEAN member states, the ASEAN Secretariat, and the dialogue partners. The policy cycle model has been a mainstay of public policy research, emerging in the 1950s to simplify the analysis of public policy making (Lasswell, 1951). In any of its iterations, the policy cycle analyzes political decision making as a series of phases. Over the years, aspects of the model have been challenged, for instance the suggestion of a successive nature of policy making along observable stages, and the assumption of rationality behind the concept (Cohen et al., 1972; Kingdon, 1984). The model

Fig. 1.1 Closed and open systems perspective on ASEAN

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is also primarily based on domestic state-level policy making, although attempts have been made to transfer the model beyond the national level, encompassing global and regional applications (Stone, 2008). This almost universal applicability of the model suggests that it is a fruitful starting point for an analysis of agency by entities that have hitherto received only limited attention. Despite its issues, the model offers one key advantage: It allows for a disaggregation of a complex process, involving many activities and a plethora of actors, into a more manageable model, allowing for the investigation of the dynamics of each stage. In this sense, the concept of the policy cycle serves essentially as a heuristic device (Pielke, 2004; Stone, 2008), capable of supporting basic empirical work on the role and impact of distinctive entities. While it does not, in and of itself, offer a causal explanation of why stages are triggered or how they are concluded (Sabatier, 1991), it does offer a starting point for more sophisticated analyses of ROs’ policy processes and the roles of various actors therein. Given the large choice and overlap between various policy-making models, this study applies a recent and parsimonious perspective on the policy cycle, adapted from Howlett et al. (2009). It consists of five stages: (1) agenda setting, (2) formulation, (3) decision making, (4) implementation, and (5) monitoring. Policy making can be conceptualized as a process of interrelated stages, moving from policy input (the problems to be addressed) to policy output (the policies decided on or rejected) (Howlett et al., 2009). Studies dealing with regional policy making or policy transfer in the Global South (Börzel & Risse, 2009; Jetschke & Lenz, 2012) often assess only start and end points, sometimes providing theoretical options for the mechanism connecting the two (Jetschke, 2009; Söderbaum, 2014), but not empirically assessing the mechanisms by which inputs become outputs. This is the research gap this study seeks to fill. Focusing on the policy cycle as the area where agency takes place also bridges the gap between research that is primarily interested in internal delegation, and that which is mainly concerned with external interactions. Studies on ASEAN’s policy-making dynamics have neglected interactions between member states and the Secretariat. Studies on ASEAN’s external relations focus either on how external actors exercise agency (Jetschke & Portela, 2013) or on how ASEAN manages external influence (Acharya, 2009). Applying the policy cycle as a heuristic device breaks open this dichotomy. With this model, it is possible to contrast and compare member states, Secretariat, and dialogue partner agency at each stage. The following paragraphs will

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Fig. 1.2 Interactions between ASEAN member states, Secretariat, and dialogue partners

outline how this study plans to contribute to the analysis of agency by the three entities (Fig. 1.2). 1.4.1

Agency by ASEAN Member States

There is a large amount of literature on ASEAN’s intergovernmental processes as well as the interests and strategies of its individual member states (Caballero-Anthony, 2008; M. Davies, 2014; L. Jones, 2007, 2012; Rüland, 2017). There is significantly less literature, however, about how ASEAN member states engage with ASEAN’s regional institutions and the dialogue partners. The objective of this study is, therefore, not to re-establish knowledge about the agency and influence of member state within ASEAN’s processes, but instead to provide a better understanding of where member states remain dominant and where they permit agency by other entities. In keeping with the title of the book, the objective is

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to understand the extent of the shadow cast by member states, and what agency is possible within it. In research on regional organizations, one of the most commonly analyzed features is the delegation of power from member states to regional institutions and bureaucracies (Hooghe et al., 2017). Depending on how much power and autonomy is delegated by member states, regional bureaucracies may be more or less empowered (Hooghe et al., 2017). Examples of empowered regional bureaucracies include the European Commission (Rhinard, 2010) but also the Commission of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) (Müller, 2023), to cite an example from the Global South. ROs in the Global South are characterized by partial delegation to regional institutions at best, with states hesitant to give in to the technical demands of delegation at the expense of national sovereignty. ASEAN is no exception to this, with most policy-making processes heavily executive-centered and intergovernmental, and non-state actors only marginally involved (Rüland, 2012). Member state delegation choices to the Secretariat are generally viewed as restrictive and non-consequential. Still, as noted before, only few studies have analyzed how member states and the Secretariat actually interact (Kng, 1990; Nair, 2015; Reinalda, 2012). Policy-making agency by member states in sectoral bodies and other intergovernmental institutions remains relatively unknown, as does the interaction of these bodies with the Secretariat. As will be shown in the analysis, there have been changes in how the member states and their Secretariat relate over the years with some impact on regional policy-making processes. In terms of member state agency vis-à-vis dialogue partners, the analysis will assess ASEAN-specific strategies in engaging and managing its external relations. Two idiosyncratic strategies that have been observed by ASEAN scholars are the pursuit of centrality (Caballero-Anthony, 2014) and hedging (Haacke, 2019; Kuik, 2008). As Caballero-Anthony notes, ASEAN manages to leverage on its centrality in regional forums to influence in-group processes despite its relative lack of power. Its high number of ties to other powers in the region as well as constant exchange of resources and information between them is what underpins ASEAN’s central position (Caballero-Anthony, 2014). The tactic of hedging, meanwhile, has been defined by Goh as […] a set of strategies aimed at avoiding (or planning for contingencies in) a situation in which states cannot decide upon more straightforward

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alternatives such as balancing, bandwagoning, or neutrality. Instead they cultivate a middle position that forestalls or avoids having to choose one side at the obvious expense of another. (Goh, 2005, p. 8)

In the case of ASEAN, hedging is often used to denote a strategy that combines risk-contingency options with return-maximization, precluding dependence on individual counterparts but ensuring the presence of multiple relationships through binding engagement of external actors (Kuik, 2008). Studies have highlighted how the two strategies build upon one another, with ASEAN centrality acting as a precondition for successful hedging (Müller, 2021a). Just as in the case of the Secretariat, this study is interested in understanding how member states engage with dialogue partners institutionally, i.e., what mechanisms they have established to restrict or permit agency by their counterparts. The strategies embedded in these mechanisms, including hedging and the establishment of centrality, will be considered alongside these institutional mechanisms. 1.4.2

Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat

While there is significantly less literature on ASEAN Secretariat agency compared to that of member states, there is a vivid scholarship on the agency of international organizations and bureaucracies. Throughout the history of political science, international organizations have mainly been conceptualized as instruments for member states to delegate tasks to. In modern policy studies, however, international bureaucracies are also understood as facilitating entities, creating channels of engagement or influence for the states that have endowed them with a mandate and resources (Eckhard & Ege, 2016; Ege & Bauer, 2011). Recent studies on international organizations have begun to put more emphasis on bureaucracies as self-directed agents (Barnett & Finnemore, 1999; Oestreich, 2012; Trondal, 2011; Venzke, 2010). Leveraging on power sources such as mandates, expertise, access to resources, information, institutional permanence, and privileged access to executives, bureaucracies can play a significant role (Barnett & Finnemore, 1999; Bauer & Ege, 2017; Herold et al., 2021a; Liese et al., 2021). Much research has been done on United Nations (UN) agencies, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, which were early examples of international organizations expanding their mandate and exercising power in policy making

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(Barnett & Finnemore, 2004; Vaubel, 1996). The European Commission has also attracted significant amounts of research, on aspects such as its institutional structure (Nugent & Rhinard, 2015), its staff (Hensell, 2017), and its development over time (Nugent & Rhinard, 2016). Still, for most international bureaucracies, autonomy remains elusive, and the question of the degree to which international organizations may act independently of their state principals remains a guiding question of the field (Hawkins et al., 2006). Particularly for weak international bureaucracies (frequently but not always based in the Global South), constrained by restrictive member state mandates and a lack of resources, the question remains whether they can exercise agency at all. The ASEAN Secretariat has frequently been described as a weak organization, at least in terms of institutional capacity and perceived impact within ASEAN (Emmerson, 2007). This is likely emblematic of regional organizations in the Global South. As noted previously, there is an almost complete absence of studies on the Secretariat. Still, it is possible to deduct potential agency from works on other regional bureaucracies in the Global South. Studies on the West African ECOWAS Commission have highlighted that even in the context of restricted resource provision, regional public administrations may exercise significant amounts of agency through the use of their power bases (Müller, 2023). Studies on ASEAN governance may also provide a pointer. The network governance identified within ASEAN by Jetschke (2009) suggests that an interesting point of departure may be the role of the Secretariat in facilitating intergovernmental processes. It is primarily in the Secretariat’s interpretation of this role that this study will seek evidence for ASEC’s agency. This approach is different from Nair’s conceptualization of the Secretariat as a largely ceremonial actor, tasked with “saving the [member] states’ face” (Nair, 2015). Here, the institution is seen as a more substantial contributor to rationalist policy-making processes. 1.4.3

Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners

Studies on ASEAN’s-dialogue partner relations have assessed relationships either from the vantage point of bilateral cooperation (Jetschke & Lim, 2012; Marchi, 2014; Müller, 2016; Portela, 2013; Rüland, 2001) or policy diffusion (Jetschke, 2009; Murray & Moxon-Browne, 2013; Wong, 2012). Cooperation-focused studies on ASEAN often analyze individual relationships of the organization to a particular dialogue

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partner, most frequently the EU (Baert et al., 2014; Bersick, 2004; Doidge, 2011; Gilson, 2002; Maier-Knapp, 2015; Söderbaum & van Langenhove, 2006; Telò et al., 2015). Studies in this vein tend to be overly focused on ASEAN’s counterparts and the bilateral relationship between two entities, not paying sufficient attention to ASEAN’s role and institutional complexity. In diffusion studies, external actors are considered the source of ideas or practices to be transferred to ASEAN (Allison, 2015; Jetschke, 2009). Studies in this vein have focused on the transfer of norms and institutional features between regional organizations, primarily from the EU (Börzel & Risse, 2009; Lenz, 2012a). It remains unclear how exactly such processes may function. Some recent studies offer more concrete hypotheses and evidence of diffusion and the mechanisms through which it may occur (Duina & Lenz, 2016; Lenz, 2012b; Lenz & Burilkov, 2017), but the outside-in logic of diffusion makes it unsuitable to analyze dialogue partner agency in relation to member states and the Secretariat. While it is clear that external actors possess a variety of resources that enable them to exercise agency vis-à-vis ASEAN, including market access, diplomatic representation, technical expertise in certain policy areas, as well as funding, it is important to investigate both sides of the relationship, instead of assuming asymmetrical relations from the outset. This study will conceptualize dialogue partners’ agency both in terms of their interactions with ASEAN member states and with the ASEAN Secretariat, in line with the view of ASEAN as an open system. Clearly, there are a number of external actors interested in engaging with ASEAN and in funding activities to support the organization (Müller, 2021b). The analysis will go beyond individual relationships to grasp the role of ASEAN’s dialogue partners in their totality, capturing individual strategies as well as interaction effects between different dialogue partners. This means that attention will be paid to the degree to which institutional cooperation and support is complementary or competitive across multiple partnerships. Another area of interest concerns the strategies employed by dialogue partners as well as their reaction to the member states’ partner management mechanisms. At a minimum, member states may check or permit engagement by dialogue partners, employing the strategies outlined above. Dialogue partners may also have an indirect influence on ASEAN, by allowing or precluding certain types of interactions through their funding or diplomatic priorities.

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1.5 Assessing Member State, Secretariat, and Dialogue Partner Policy-Making Agency---The Policy Cycle In the following, I will outline the five stages of policy making investigated throughout this study.3 The five stages are used in the analysis of member state, ASEAN Secretariat, and dialogue partner agency, in Chapters 2 to 6. 1.5.1

Agenda Setting

At the outset of policy making, different entities are involved in setting the agenda. Most essentially, agenda setting is about relevant political actors recognizing an issue and moving to address it (B. D. Jones & Baumgartner, 2007). In regional organizations, most agendas are set by member states. There are, however, policy-making models that assume that agendas can also be introduced by actors outside of governments, a process known as outside initiation (Cobb et al., 1976). While ASEAN is generally understood as having a closed agendasetting processes, driven by the member states, there are some openings for other actors to carry out agenda setting at this stage. An important concept in agenda setting is the idea of policy windows, which open and close over specific periods of time, permitting agenda setting of particular problems and policies (Kingdon, 1984). Member states may open and close policy windows on their own volition, but this may also happen through external events (e.g., shocks such as the AFC and the adoption of the ASEAN Charter). Policy windows in regional organizations may also be connected to changes in institutional leadership and chairmanship dynamics in intergovernmental bodies (Suzuki, 2021). Policy windows may also open up through the adoption of strategic frameworks or multi-year programs by ASEAN, such as the charter or the community blueprints. Regional bureaucracies, in this case the ASEAN Secretariat, may react to this opening and closing of policy windows. In rare cases, they may also contribute to the opening of policy windows themselves, by raising 3 The same theoretical framework is applied in another publication of mine, Müller (2022). The framework presented here follows a slightly different logic based on the structure of this book and the particularities of ASEAN.

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new issues with member states. An interesting possibility for agency by ASEC is the inclusion of external stakeholders in agenda-setting processes. Some policy studies literature is concerned with the degree to which external stakeholders such as the public at large and interest groups can put items on the agenda (Cobb et al., 1976). Creating and maintaining channels of dialogue such as policy roundtables, civil society engagement programs, and other such activities occur in some regional organizations (van der Vleuten & Ribeiro Hoffmann, 2007) and it may be interesting to investigate the Secretariat’s agency in this sense. Dialogue partners, as the ASEAN Secretariat, are likely to react primarily to the opening and closing of policy windows by member states. As the analysis will show, however, there are also innovative ways in which external actors attempt to open policy windows themselves. An interesting line of investigation is to which degree the provision of external support by dialogue partners may contribute to this. One possibility is that they contribute indirectly to the opening of policy windows by allowing certain types of institutional support and precluding others through their multiyear strategies. The EU and its member states, for instance, elaborate five-year strategies outlining support priorities for particular regions as well as support projects covering multiple years, allowing engagement with ASEAN in some areas, but not others. 1.5.2

Formulation

Policy formulation refers to the process of generating options for the issues identified at the agenda-setting stage. Formulating options may involve assessing the background of a particular issue, identifying potential courses of action, and narrowing down potential options to facilitate decision making (Sidney, 2017). Ultimately, a proposal is drafted that coalesces the previous inputs, which may be a concrete regulation or a plan for further deliberation (Howlett et al., 2009). While member states remain the key players in formulating options, the fact that technical expertise is often needed to appraise an issue’s complexity and to elaborate options may mean that even more than in agenda setting, member states are likely to have reasons to permit agency by the Secretariat and dialogue partners. Member states may also be interested in including additional stakeholders, such as civil society, interest groups, external consultants (Howlett & Migone, 2013; Saint-Martin, 1998; van der Vleuten & Ribeiro Hoffmann, 2007), or external partners

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into formulation processes. Sometimes, they are forced to. The inclusion of external stakeholders such as civil society is in fact often a prerequisite for the provision of institutional support programs. The formulation of policies is considered one of the primary activities for public administrations and bureaucracies (Howlett et al., 2009), which is why the agency of the Secretariat at this stage will receive particular attention. Policy formulation by ASEC may be directed by member states, but may also be self-directed, in cases where the bureaucracy is provided with enough slack to carry out analysis and preparation of options on its own accord. As at the agenda-setting stage, bureaucracies may also be involved in the inclusion of external actors in formulation processes. Since bureaucracies play a facilitating role and act as repositories of information, they may also be tasked with the engagement of experts and consultants to bridge knowledge and capacity constraints. Dialogue partners may support policy formulation in various ways, assisting member states or the Secretariat in the appraisal of policies, creating venues for dialogue, or helping to consolidate policy outputs (Sidney, 2017). Again, the availability of support for certain formulation activities and not others may constitute a type of agency in its own right. In addition, the support from dialogue partners may be sought by member states in order to draw from their expertise. Finally, the importance of external stakeholders in policy formulation, particularly experts and consultants, may provide an additional opening for agency in policy formulation. External actors often fund the engagement of such actors for ASEAN and the Secretariat. 1.5.3

Decision Making

Decision making builds upon the previous stages through the selection of one or none of the options prepared at the previous stage (Brewer & DeLeon, 1983). Decision-making processes within ASEAN are executive-centered and opaque, leaving little space for other actors. This is consistent with research on other political entities, which has acknowledged that the number of stakeholders involved in decision making generally tends to be narrower than at preceding stages (Howlett et al., 2009). As a result, this stage is excluded from the analysis of Secretariat and dialogue partner agency from Chapters 3 through 6. This book does not purport to provide an in-depth analysis of decision making by ASEAN member states. Access to top-level decision-makers is difficult and

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few decision-makers were consulted in the research. Nonetheless, some information on decision-making processes within ASEAN was obtained and is outlined in Chapter 2, as ASEAN’s decision-making structures and procedures have repercussions for preceding and successive stages. Some aspects of decision making in ASEAN deserve closer attention. In several policy areas, but particularly the AEC, decision making is successive in nature, involving a variety of personnel in nested intergovernmental bodies, all belonging to the member states’ executives. To explain the relationship of these bodies, a useful concept is the model of decision accretion (Weiss, 1980), a process in which decisions are not taken at one point in time by a single set of stakeholders, but instead by various groups over time. Another aspect is the nature of decision-making outputs and their legal character. While ASEAN mainly creates soft law as its output, an interesting aspect of decision making within the organization is the increasing move towards legalization, following idiosyncratic patterns (Deinla, 2017). 1.5.4

Implementation

The implementation stage refers to the process of transferring policy decisions into action (Howlett et al., 2009). These actions are under the purview of national administrations, which often have unique legal and bureaucratic traditions, differing strongly between member states, e.g., between Singapore and Laos. Successful implementation of policies is frequently a question of state capacity (Matland, 1995). Given that this book focuses on regional-level processes, implementation lies at the margins of what is relevant to the ASEAN Secretariat. Dialogue partners, however, which often have deep relationships to individual ASEAN member states, have a particular interest in this policy stage. Implementation is not typically part of a bureaucracy’s mandate. As the section on the Secretariat’s mandate (2.1.2) will show, policy implementation is not one of its responsibilities, not even in a facilitative function. This does not mean, however, that the Secretariat is completely uninvolved in implementation. There appears to be some agency by the Secretariat, related to its role as a networker between intergovernmental bodies. Dialogue partners, due to their interest in propelling regional policy implementation at the national level, may be particularly interested in providing support at this stage, through the provision of national-level

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policy advice and funding. In contrast to the previous stages of the policy cycle, dialogue partners can directly support implementation of policies at the national level, through targeted support of individual member states. 1.5.5

Monitoring

The monitoring stage is where the effect of implemented policies is assessed, changes are proposed and policy learning may take place, feeding back into a new policy cycle. Obviously, monitoring is a contentious process since it faces national governments with questions of effectiveness and accountability. Similar to the agenda-setting and formulation stages, external stakeholders such as interest groups and consultants have played a role in monitoring and evaluating policies (Howlett & Migone, 2013), which means there may be a window of opportunity for both the ASEAN Secretariat as well as dialogue partners. Monitoring is a policy stage where bureaucracies traditionally play an important function due to their central position, role as repositories of information, and sometimes neutral character. The Secretariat may also play a role at this stage, both as a monitor in its own right, as well as a facilitator of external monitoring by other stakeholders, supporting intergovernmental bodies. As we shall see in the analysis, the degree to which the Secretariat is able to play this role is connected to the policy area in question. Dialogue partners are likely to be invested in monitoring for the same reason why they may exhibit agency at the implementation stage. External actors view monitoring as a key determinant for improved regional policy making and for regional organizations to provide an added value to national governments more generally. They may be interested in aspects including the monitoring of policy-making processes, performance, efficiency, and effectiveness (Davidson, 2004). In addition, since dialogue partners provide public funds to ASEAN, they themselves are under pressure to monitor the impact of their programs due to concerns over aid effectiveness.

1.6

Structure of this Book

This book will proceed as follows: The next chapter (2) will focus on member state agency, outlining the interactions between the member

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states and the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as ASEAN’s dialogue partners, highlighting the degree to which member states are casting a shadow for other actors within ASEAN. This chapter will address member state delegation choices over time, in terms of formal mandate, as well as institutional practice. Past and ongoing reforms of the ASEAN Secretariat will also be addressed. In the section on member state-dialogue partner relations, ASEAN’s external environment as well as the mechanisms to manage dialogue partners will be analyzed. Chapters 3 and 5 focus on the agency of the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Economic and Political-Security Community, respectively. Outlining current policy-making trends in each sector, the chapters then turn towards an analysis of policy-making agency at distinctive stages of the policy cycle. The Secretariat is presented as the Involved Networker, playing a modest policy-making role in close proximity to member states. Both chapters highlight idiosyncratic features of Secretariat agency in each policy area and draw comparisons. Chapters 4 and 6 finally focus on the agency of ASEAN’s dialogue partners, also in the AEC and the APSC. Following an analysis of policymaking dynamics in ASEAN’s external environment in each policy area, the chapters outline dialogue partner agency at distinctive stages of the policy cycle, mirroring the previous analysis of Secretariat agency. Dialogue partner agency is termed Intergovernmental Policy-Making Support, with partners providing support to ASEAN sectoral bodies and the member states. Chapter 7 concludes the book with a discussion of the study’s implications for studies on ASEAN as well as other regional organizations, as well as an agenda for further research.

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Söderbaum, F. (2014). Modes of regional governance in Africa: Neoliberalism, sovereignty-boosting and shadow networks. Global Governance, 10(4), 419– 436. Söderbaum, F., & van Langenhove, L. (Eds.). (2006). The EU as a global player. The politics of interregionalism. Routledge. Stone, D. (2008). Global public policy, transnational policy communities, and their networks. Policy Studies Journal, 36(1), 19–38. https://doi.org/10. 1111/j.1541-0072.2007.00251.x Stubbs, R. (2000). Signing on to liberalization: AFTA and the politics of regional economic cooperation. The Pacific Review, 13(2), 297–318. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/095127400363604 Stubbs, R. (2019). ASEAN sceptics versus ASEAN proponents: Evaluating regional institutions. The Pacific Review, 32(6), 923–950. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/09512748.2019.1611627 Sukma, R. (2008). Building the ASEAN community: How useful is the ASEAN charter? The Indonesian Quarterly, 36(3–4), 258–277. Suzuki, S. (2004). East Asian cooperation through conference diplomacy: Institutional aspects of the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) framework. IDE APEC Study Center Working Paper Series, 3(4). Suzuki, S. (2021). Can ASEAN offer a useful model? Chairmanship in decisionmaking by consensus. The Pacific Review, 34(5), 697–723. Swee-Hock, S., Lijun, S., & Wah, C. K. (2005). ASEAN-China relations: realities and prospects. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Tan, H.-L. (2011). The ASEAN intergovernmental commission on human rights: Institutionalising human rights in Southeast Asia. Cambridge University Press. Tan, S. S. (2017). Multilateral Asian security architecture: Non-ASEAN stakeholders. Routledge. Tansey, O. (2007). Process Tracing and Elite Interviewing: A Case for Nonprobability Sampling. PS Political Science and Politics, 40(04), 765–772. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096507071211 Telò, M., Fawcett, L. L., & Ponjaert, F. (Eds.). (2015). Globalisation, Europe, multilateralism. Interregionalism and the European Union: A post-revisionist approach to Europe’s place in a changing world. Ashgate Publishing Company. Thambipillai, P. (1980). Regional cooperation and development: the case of ASEAN and its external relations. University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Tiwari, S. (Ed.) (2010). ASEAN: Life after the charter. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Trondal, J. (2011). Bureaucratic structure and administrative behaviour: Lessons from international bureaucracies. West European Politics, 34(4), 795–818. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2011.572392

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Van der Vleuten, A., & Ribeiro Hoffmann, A. (Eds.). (2007). Closing or widening the gap? Legitimacy and democracy in regional integration organizations. Ashgate. Vaubel, R. (1996). Bureaucracy at the IMF and the World Bank: A comparison of the evidence. The World Economy, 19(2), 195–210. https://doi.org/10. 1111/j.1467-9701.1996.tb00672.x Venzke, I. (2010). International bureaucracies from a political science perspective: Agency, authority and International Institutional Law. In A. von Bogdandy, R. Wolfrum, J. von Bernstorff, P. Dann, & M. Goldmann (Eds.), The Exercise of Public Authority by International Institutions: Advancing International Institutional Law (pp. 67–98). Springer. Weatherbee, D. E. (2014). International relations in Southeast Asia: The struggle for autonomy. Rowman & Littlefield. Weiss, C. H. (1980). Knowledge creep and decision accretion. Knowledge, 1(3), 381–404. Wong, R. (2012). Model power or reference point? The EU and the ASEAN Charter. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25(4), 669–682. https://doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2012.678302 Wong, R. (2014). Creeping supranationalism: The EU and ASEAN experiences. In L. Brennan & P. Murray (Eds.), Drivers of integration and regionalism in Europe and Asia. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315744193-28 Wunderlich, J.-U. (2012). Comparing regional organisations in global multilateral institutions: ASEAN, the EU and the UN. Asia Europe Journal, 10(2), 127–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10308-012-0324-4

CHAPTER 2

Casting Shadows: ASEAN Member States, the Secretariat, and Dialogue Partners

This chapter addresses member state agency, both in relation to the ASEAN Secretariat, and ASEAN’s dialogue partners. Given ASEAN’s character as an intergovernmental regional organization, with a large emphasis on member state control, it is important to understand member state agency in relation to the Secretariat and dialogue partners in order to be able to gauge agency on their respective sides. Aspects assessed in this chapter include member states’ delegation choices to the ASEAN Secretariat and the resulting institutional arrangements, including mandate, organizational design, and interactions in policy making. The chapter takes a long-term view, considering developments in member state-Secretariat relations over the past twenty years. In terms of the member states’ relations with the dialogue partners, the properties of ASEAN’s external environment as well as its partner management strategies are considered. Throughout the analysis, the guiding question is to which degree ASEAN member states cast a shadow over the Secretariat and the dialogue partners, i.e., to which degree they are in control of the respective interactions. The insights provided in this chapter inform the analyses of Secretariat and dialogue partner agency in the successive chapters. The chapter is structured in two parts, with the first part focusing on member state-Secretariat interactions, the second part focusing on member state-dialogue partner interactions. Part one begins with a © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_2

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brief overview of the history of establishing the ASEAN Secretariat (Sect. 2.1.1), followed by a history of its mandate (Sect. 2.1.2), as well as its organizational design (Sect. 2.1.3). Thereafter, interaction practices between the member states and ASEC are analyzed (Sect. 2.1.4), first in general, then focusing on the relationship of the sectoral bodies (Sect. 2.1.5) and the CPR (Sect. 2.1.6). In part two, member state relations with the dialogue partners are analyzed, including ASEAN’s external environment (Sect. 2.2.1) and its partner management strategies (Sect. 2.2.2). The chapter concludes with a summary (Sect. 2.3).

2.1

Member States and the Secretariat

The dichotomy between member states and regional institutions is not specific to ASEAN but affects all ROs across the world. Nonetheless, there are certain particularities that should be considered when assessing how ASEAN member states and the Secretariat interact. Chiefly among those is the question about which entities are actually interacting. When referring to member states in the context of ASEAN, reference is not necessarily made to national executives or even national bureaucracies as a whole, but frequently specific actors within national bureaucracies tasked with ASEAN-level policy making and interaction. When it comes to policy making, ASEAN’s member states work primarily through thematically and hierarchically differentiated intergovernmental working groups known as sectoral bodies.1 These groups, consisting of bureaucrats drawn from the member state ministries, deliberate within their areas of expertise, conducting activities throughout the policy-making process. The sectoral bodies are tasked with agenda setting and policy formulation, with implementation under the purview of national ministries (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017a). How exactly do ASEAN member states and their Secretariat interact? ASEAN’s website dedicates only four concise paragraphs to this subject: The ASEAN Secretariat was set up in February 1976 by the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN. It was then housed at the Department of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia in Jakarta.

1 The higher-level bodies are listed under Annex 1 of the ASEAN Charter, while subordinate working groups are created by those bodies themselves.

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The ASEAN Secretariat’s basic function is to provide for greater efficiency in the coordination of ASEAN organs and for more effective implementation of ASEAN projects and activities. The ASEAN Secretariat’s vision is that by 2015, it will be the nerve centre of a strong and confident ASEAN Community that is globally respected for acting in full compliance with its Charter and in the best interest of its people. The ASEAN Secretariat’s mission is to initiate, facilitate and coordinate ASEAN stakeholder collaboration in realising the purposes and principles of ASEAN as reflected in the ASEAN Charter. (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019a)

These few sentences belie a more complicated institutional past as well as the more intricate facets of member state-Secretariat interactions. They are, however, representative of the public face of the institution, as well as member states’ general perspective on their regional bureaucracy. In line with ASEC’s role as the Involved Networker, its agency cannot be separated from its relationship to ASEAN’s member states and the organization’s various intergovernmental bodies. At the most basic level, the ASEAN Secretariat is the institutional hub coordinating their work. This provides ASEC with a central but rarely dominant role in the institutional coordination process. The above paragraphs support the concept of the Secretariat as the Involved Networker, acting primarily as a facilitator and coordinator. The word choice of “nerve center” is telling as it denotes ASEC’s central position within some processes related to ASEAN, although it is not clear which ones. The suggested 2015 deadline for the development of the Secretariat highlights that there has always been a narrative of institutional reform and strengthening surrounding the ASEAN Secretariat. Member stateSecretariat relations have not been stable over time, and particularly the last two decades have seen significant changes. There have been pervasive calls to strengthen the Secretariat for many decades, virtually since its establishment. Nair (2016) outlines how the narrative of a strengthened Secretariat is rooted in expectations of increased regional coherence and centrality. Calls for a strengthening of ASEC along rationalist-bureaucratic principles should not be seen solely as a matter of resources, but rather as a debate over ASEAN cooperation norms (Nair, 2016). Dosch (2013) has also suggested that the discourse on strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat is actually a foil for more deep-seated ASEAN governance issues, such as limited cooperation norms and national-level policy implementation.

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2.1.1

A Brief History of the ASEAN Secretariat

At the establishment of ASEAN in 1967 through the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration, no regional institutions were initially set up to facilitate regional cooperation (ASEAN Secretariat, 1967). The design of the regional organization was so lean that neither a funding mechanism (Hooghe et al., 2017) nor a coordinating institution or an institutional head existed. Until 1981, ASEAN was managed from within the member states by the ASEAN national secretariats. The ASEAN Secretariat first emerged as a part of the Declaration of ASEAN Concord in 1976, which included an agreement on the establishment of the Secretariat as an “improvement of ASEAN machinery” (ASEAN Secretariat, 1976b). The concurrent Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat created the institution and the position of the secretary-general (SG), who was endowed with a mandate (see Sect. 2.1.2) (ASEAN Secretariat, 1976a). With ASEAN’s efforts towards creating a free trade area in the early 1990s (Ravenhill, 1995), a strengthening of the Secretariat also took place. The Protocol Amending the Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat was adopted in 1992, which expanded the mandate of the secretary-general, created the position of deputy secretarygeneral (DSG), and expanded the minimum Secretariat staff. While skepticism remained of the true capabilities of the institution (Ravenhill, 1995), these aspects of the “new” ASEAN Secretariat (Interview 16; Nair, 2015) signified a marked shift towards a more independent institution, with the aim of creating “an international civil service that knows that national governments are overwhelmed and will not have the capacities for regional policy” (Interview 16). Successive agreements prior to the 2008 ASEAN Charter did not affect the structure of the Secretariat, with the ASEAN Concord II from 2003 containing no mention of ASEC (ASEAN Secretariat, 2003). The charter, however, goes into significant detail regarding the secretary-general’s and the Secretariat’s mandate, legal standing, and resources (ASEAN Secretariat, 2008), introducing the three-pillar structure that permeates all ASEAN documents and the Secretariat until today, and expanding the number of deputy secretaries-general to four. Section 2.1.2 contains an in-depth discussion of the expanded mandate ASEC received through the charter.

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Two historical moments are particularly notable in the institutional development of the ASEAN Secretariat. The first, the early 1990s, was characterized by fears of a sidelining of ASEAN due to the rise of China and US withdrawal, as well as desire for deeper market integration (Hooghe et al., 2017), leading to a strengthening of regional coordination mechanisms and a professionalization of the Secretariat. The second moment, the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2008, has commonly been related to the shock of the Asian Financial Crisis, which led ASEAN to reassess its regional cooperation mechanisms yet again. There may have been another significant period influencing ASEC’s institutional development—the tenure of Surin Pitsuwan from 2008 to 2012. The appointment of Surin was described as a “game changer” for the institution, as no such high-profile person had been appointed before (Interview 2). Surin had a vision for ASEC that was “not quite like the EU, but not note-takers either” (Interview 2). When his ambitions for the institution became apparent, the member states pushed back, as they took offense at the tone that the Secretariat leadership took. They did not want to be pushed aside by a centralized bureaucracy in Jakarta, and felt empowered by the charter and the ambassadorial rights given to them through the new structure of the CPR, and began to rein ASEC in (Interview 2). The message to ASEC, simply put, was “make sure we’re on track but you can’t direct this process,” with the CPR reminding ASEC that their primary responsibility is the servicing of intergovernmental meetings (Interview 2). To reform its intergovernmental agreements as well as its institutional architecture, the ASEAN member states have frequently used so-called eminent persons groups to recommend institutional modifications, including for the drafting of the ASEAN Charter. Eminent persons groups were also used to suggest changes to the structure of ASEC (Interview 16). One of the most notable documents calling for ASEC reforms came out of ASEC itself, however. Towards the end of his tenure as secretary-general, Surin released a report titled “ASEAN’s Challenge,” which outlined a number of issues affecting the functioning of the Secretariat, including workload, organizational capacity, funding, as well as the constraints of the Secretariat building as a physical site (Pitsuwan, 2011). Following Surin’s report, ASEAN member states set up the HighLevel Task Force (HLTF) on Strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat and Reviewing the ASEAN Organs in 2013. Its concluding report, presented at the 15th meeting of the ASEAN Coordinating Council in 2014,

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outlined various reform proposals, mirroring the criticism previously voiced by the Surin report (ASEAN Secretariat, 2014). The HLTF report went on to make 88 recommendations in total. Among them were the suggestions to cut back on the number of meetings, the dissolution of unnecessary mechanisms, greater efficiency in the scheduling of meetings, and an increased number of meetings to be hosted at the Secretariat rather than across the member states. Significantly, the HLTF suggested reviewing the effectiveness and financial viability of ASEAN organs, and the setting up of a robust reporting system on the ratification of agreements and their implementation. A strengthening of the Secretariat was also suggested, with a proposed increase in staff from 305 in 2015 to 469 by 2025. Other points suggested include an improvement in knowledge management systems as well as a strengthening of the Secretariat’s ability to carry out cross-pillar coordination, research, as well as monitoring and implementation of ASEAN decisions. Finally, strengthening of the Legal Services and Agreements Division (LSAD) was also proposed (Muqbil, 2015; ASEAN Secretariat, 2014). At the 25th ASEAN Summit, the heads of state adopted a declaration based on the HLTF’s recommendations, including its financial and staff dimensions, tasking the ASEAN Coordinating Council, the community councils, and the CPR with implementation, and the secretary-general of ASEC with monitoring of progress (ASEAN Secretariat, 2014). Even though Secretariat staff downplayed the relevance and impact of the HLTF report, as well as Surin’s report on their current situation (Interview 35), there are indications that suggestions from the HTLF report have been taken up. Most apparent is the strengthening of monitoring capabilities, through the emergence of the monitoring entities within the three pillars as well as the strengthening of the Legal Services and Agreements Division to carry out reporting on ratification and implementation of agreements. It is less clear to which degree ASEAN has managed to cut back on the number of intergovernmental meetings and to improve their scheduling. It appears as if the adoption of the latest community blueprints in 2016 has set off another period of reform of the Secretariat, characterized by the acknowledgment of a need for centralized expertise on regional cooperation and the build-up of what ASEAN member states call “analytical capacity” (Interview 56; Interview 74), lending support to the findings of the HLTF report. Compared to the first two reform moments, however, the current changes underway within the Secretariat are more

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gradual in nature and not tied to high-level agreements but rather lowertier documents and institutional practices, as well as ad hoc adaptions. Some external actors have suggested that the changes related to “analytical capacity” rather consist of a reordering of capacity than an actual strengthening (Interview 67). It is notable that the first two historical instances of ASEC reform may be seen as a reaction to external drivers, as responses to a perceived risk of ASEAN drifting into irrelevancy. Recent calls for institutional strengthening, in comparison, appear to be driven by internal dynamics. 2.1.2

The Secretariat’s Mandate through the Years

When assessing the mandate of the Secretariat today, three key documents are particularly relevant: the 1976 Protocol on the ASEAN Secretariat, the 1992 Protocol amending the original protocol, and the 2008 ASEAN Charter. All three documents mainly outline functions for the secretarygeneral, the Secretariat’s role being to assist the SG. In this section, the SG’s mandate is, therefore, taken as representative of that of the entire Secretariat, which has over the years turned from a small office into a midsized international public bureaucracy. Since the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, ASEC’s mandate has become disaggregated due to the existence of four different strategic plans in ASEAN’s three pillars, AEC, APSC, ASCC, and Connectivity. These plans all address the Secretariat’s role within their respective policy areas and differ greatly in the mandate outlined. The Secretariat’s mandate in the AEC and APSC is addressed in Sections 3.2 and 5.2, respectively. The functions associated with the Secretariat as the Involved Networker—an actor facilitating intergovernmental processes—first come into view in the 1976 agreement establishing ASEC. Out of 14 functions outlined in Article III of the agreement, 7 directly refer to the SG’s relationship with the intergovernmental bodies, including the Ministerial Meeting, the Standing Committee, and various other committees. The mandated tasks can only be described as facilitating and providing information, including, for instance, meeting support (functions 1 and 4), communication and information (functions 3, 5, and 6), and general support of intergovernmental processes (functions 2 and 14). Generally, ASEC’s role is defined as “a channel for formal communication” (function 5) between various member state bodies. Three other substantial functions are contained within the documents, tasking the secretary-general

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to “prepare an Annual Report for submission to the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting” (function 7), to “harmonize, facilitate and monitor progress in the implementation of all approved ASEAN activities” (function 8), and to “initiate plans and programmes of activities for ASEAN regional co-operation in accordance with approved policy guidelines” (function 9) (ASEAN Secretariat, 1976a). What is clear when assessing ASEC’s agency today is that the Secretariat still very much fulfills all of these roles, particularly those related to facilitation and monitoring. Looking at the member state perspective on the Secretariat, it is remarkable how consistent the mandate provided has been over time. The 1992 Protocol largely mirrors the 1976 Agreement, with 9 out of 14 functions delegated to the Secretariat in Article III essentially repeated verbatim. Still, it does include some functions that depart from the previous mandate of the institution. Notable differences include a more differentiated view of the “initiate plans” function, which is expanded to “initiate, advise, co-ordinate and implement ASEAN activities” (function 4). Function 4 contains responsibility for the preparation and monitoring of ASEAN’s 3-Year Cooperation Plan and to “conduct, and collaborate in, research activities […]” and “plan, programme, coordinate, harmonize and manage all approved technical cooperation activities”. Some changes are also made regarding the external relations of the organization. The SG was now also able to act as a spokesperson, allowed to “conduct consultations with the Contracting Parties, the private sector, the NonGovernmental Organizations and other constituencies of ASEAN” and to “coordinate ASEAN dialogues with international and regional organizations and with any dialogue country that may be assigned to him” (function 5). Other changes include the right to “monitor the implementation of the Agreement on the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme for the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) […]” (function 7) and to “administer funds established for ASEAN cooperation” (function 8), a change that signifies the emerging resource-mobilization function. Overall, the 1992 Protocol solidifies ASEC’s role as the Involved Networker, mainly outlining institutional duties as an entity supporting intergovernmental processes, albeit with key changes increasing institutional autonomy. Concurrently, however, a strengthening of ASEC’s mandate can be observed within the 1992 AFTA. This illustrates the creeping and policy area-specific progress of ASEC, as other documents began to incorporate similar competences over time.

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The 2008 Charter radically condenses the mandate of the Secretariat, only outlining five substantial functions of the SG. While the mandate is more concise, it does not significantly depart from the previous documents. It expands ASEC’s mandate slightly, widening it to other issue areas beyond AFTA. This results in the SG now being able to “facilitate and monitor progress in the implementation of ASEAN agreements and decisions […]” (Art. 8, b) and to “present the views of ASEAN and participate in meetings with external parties […]” (Art. 8, d). While only marginally distinct from previous documents, the mention of implementation in this mandate is particularly notable, as it opens up ASEC’s involvement in new aspects of agreements and decisions. In Article 27, the SG is also given responsibility to “monitor the compliance with the findings, recommendations or decisions resulting from an ASEAN dispute settlement mechanism […]” (Article 27). However, this dispute settlement mechanism has never actually been invoked. Following the introduction of the ASEAN Charter and the concurrent disaggregation of the institution in the now-pervasive economic, political-security, and sociocultural pillars, other documents have begun to take on more importance for the mandate and functioning of the Secretariat. The AEC, APSC, and ASCC blueprints outline separate visions of ASEC’s role, which has an effect on the relationships of the concerned directorates with the relevant sectoral bodies. The content and significance of the AEC Blueprint are outlined in more detail in Section 3.1, that of the APSC Blueprint in Section 5.1. The ASCC Blueprint has the most conservative vision of ASEC, mentioning it only as a support entity for existing intergovernmental processes (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016a). The AEC Blueprint, meanwhile, has the most progressive view of the Secretariat, outlining, for instance, a mandate to coordinate with the ASEAN Business Advisory Council and feed consultations into the sectoral bodies (Chapter II, Section D.2, 71), and to track “implementation and compliance of strategic measures […] through an enhanced monitoring framework using appropriate approaches […]” (Chapter III, Section A, 82) (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015). The APSC Blueprint promulgates a vision of ASEC that occupies a middle ground between the other two blueprints. While it generally outlines a mandate to facilitate existing intergovernmental dialogues, it also tasks the Secretariat with the organization of academic conferences, workshops, and seminars (Chapter II, Section A.1.5), suggesting a role for ASEC in track II and track III dialogues, and calls for a larger role in external relations through

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the enhancement of the SG’s and ASEC’s role in the ASEAN Regional Forum (Chapter II, Section B.1.3) and the East Asia Summit (Chapter II, Section B.1.4). The APSC Blueprint also contains a call to enhance engagement between ASEC and non-ASEAN member states and intergovernmental organizations (Chapter II, Section C.2.2), and outlines a role for ASEC in monitoring the Political-Security Blueprint (Chapter III, Section A) (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016b). The tasks delegated to the Secretariat within the AEC and the APSC blueprints appear to strengthen ASEC’s mandate at the formulation and monitoring stages. All three documents also call for a strengthening of the ASEAN Secretariat in line with the recommendation of the High-Level Task Force (ASEAN Secretariat, 2014), the conclusions of which are discussed in more detail in Sect. 2.1.3. Looking at the Secretariat’s mandate over the years, it is clear that developments have been gradual but steady. At least on paper, there has been a clear growth in competences and responsibilities for the Secretariat. Sections 2.1.4, 2.1.5, and 2.1.6 will put the above into context, contrasting interaction practices between the member states and the Secretariat with the formal mandate. 2.1.3

The Secretariat’s Organizational Design through the Years

In line with the Secretariat’s mandate, member states have also evolved ASEC’s organizational design over time. The Secretariat began its life as a bureaucracy in 1976, with a secretary-general and seven staff, seconded from the member states (ASEAN Secretariat, 1976a). In 1992, a deputy secretary-general was added, and the Secretariat staff was expanded to 24. These were no longer seconded from member states but hired based on merit (ASEAN Secretariat, 1992). The first batch of 24 new personnel came from a variety of backgrounds, including the editor-in-chief of the Bangkok Post as well as researchers and staff from international organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (Interview 16). This reform of the Secretariat was also accompanied by other organizational modernization measures, such as an internal monitoring and evaluation system, performance reviews, and the introduction of management standards (Interview 16). While minor reforms and steady staff expansion took place until the 2000s, the Secretariat’s structure largely remained the same.

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For a long time, the Secretariat’s organizational performance was hampered by the fact that it was “deliberately underfunded” (Ravenhill, 1995, p. 861) or at least very weak financially (Nair, 2016; Pitsuwan, 2011). This is obviously a function of member state interest in keeping their Secretariat limited in capacity and role. The organization is subject to a funding agreement by the ASEAN member states, with all countries providing equal contributions. While ASEC does not release a public budget, budget estimates converge around $20 million annually, up from $18 million in the 1990s (Interview 16). The low level of funding is due to member state negotiations over contribution levels, which tend to get resolved on a lowest common denominator basis (Interview 69; Rattanasevee, 2014). ASEAN member states interested in providing more funds were unable to due to the imperative of retaining the equal contributions principle (Interview 69). Member states interested in providing additional funding to ASEAN found other ways to contribute, for instance through the Initiative for ASEAN Integration or the launching of other initiatives (Interview 69). Funding gaps within the Secretariat itself are usually bridged through the use of external funding rather than additional member state contributions (Interview 21; Interview 31; Interview 40; Interview 9). Dialogue partners voiced their awareness and frustration at ASEAN’s apparent unwillingness to financially back its own regional institutions (Interview 46). It was generally understood that member states would only agree to gradual institutional growth, including staff numbers (Interview 46; Interview 7). Following the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, the Secretariat was restructured to follow the three community pillars created, with the addition of a fourth pillar, named the Community and Corporate Affairs Department. With the ASEAN Charter also came a legal empowerment of the ASEAN Secretariat, endowing the organization with a legal personality. In addition, the legal divisions within the ASEAN Secretariat under the Community Affairs pillar were empowered, particularly the legal agreements division, tasked with interpreting the charter and various other activities (Chalermpalanupap, 2010). While many Secretariat divisions are still primarily tasked with the servicing of various sectoral body meetings, some of them have taken on more substantial policy-making tasks over time. This has resulted in a change of designation, with directorates and divisions under the AEC and the ASCC now designated by the specific issue areas such as the directorate of sectoral development (AEC) or the directorate of sustainable

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development (ASCC). This is not the case in the political-security pillar, where divisions are still designated in broad terms, with three directorates dealing with political cooperation, security cooperation, and external relations. Their subordinate divisions are not publicly differentiated in their tasks and exhibit significant overlap in their day-to-day activities (Interview 60). The only functionally designated divisions under the APSC are those dealing with human rights, servicing the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights, as well as the political analysis and monitoring division. This reflects the fact that under the APSC, ASEC conforms much more with its traditional facilitative role, providing less substantial policy contributions than under the other two pillars. Related to its funding constraints, ASEC suffers from staff shortages, although the number of staff has increased to over 300 from an average of 226 during the time of Surin Pitsuwan (Pitsuwan, 2011). The increase in staff capacity in the Secretariat has been accompanied by a commensurate increase in member state meetings that Secretariat staff are expected to facilitate and service. For this reason, institutional capacity did not tangibly increase in many sectors and the institutional growth has not permitted ASEC to expand its agency, except for a few select areas. Dialogue partner representatives generally describe the number of staff as being insufficient for the mandated activities (Interview 2; Interview 9). Some higher-level staff suggested that it is rather the quality and not the number of staff that is an issue for ASEC (Interview 66). An external actor suggested that the staff were “good enough” for the limited amount of policy-relevant work that Secretariat staff are tasked with (Interview 46). Variation in the strength of background was observed, with staff in the economic pillar possessing more capacity, corresponding to their stronger role in the policy process (Interview 4). Today, the ASEAN Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General and, since 2008, four Deputy Secretary-Generals, who are all of different nationalities and whose appointments rotate among the ten ASEAN member states. The DSGs all head one department each, covering ASEAN’s three thematic pillars and one focused on corporate affairs. The Secretariat encompasses eleven directorates in total. Due to this small number of directorates, they all have oversight of relatively broad policy areas. Under the economic pillar, for instance, there are only three directorates: Market Integration, Sectoral Development, and ASEAN Integration Monitoring. The political pillar in turn only subsumes two directorates, as well as one unassigned division. Each directorate subsumes a varying number of divisions, with varying degrees of task specificity and staff strength, both across and within the pillars (Fig. 2.1).

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Fig. 2.1 Organization chart of the ASEAN Secretariat

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As of 2017, ASEC had 347 staff (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017b). Staff capacity is distributed unevenly across the organization’s three pillars, with 49 APSC staff, 116 AEC staff, 47 ASCC staff, and 98 staff in the Community Affairs directorates at the time (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017b). Staff capacity is also highly uneven at the directorate level, with staff numbers ranging from three (in the ASCC Monitoring Division and the Labor and Civil Service Division) to thirteen (in the Trade Facilitation Division). Staff strength is often reflective of political prioritization by member states, with areas with significant political impetus, such as the AEC directorates, typically more strongly staffed than areas attracting less member state interest. The majority of ASEC staff are now openly recruited and the practice of member secondment essentially ceased with the 1992 Secretariat reform. Still, it was noted that the practice of secondment from member states persists in the case of Vietnamese staff, who, while not technically seconded, frequently appear to come from the member state’s ministries and resume work at ministries following the end of their postings at ASEC (Interview 2). Nair (2016) also mentions that Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos tend to send public servants due to the dearth of appropriate candidates from other sources within their countries. Interview sources confirmed that it is indeed challenging to recruit Secretariat staff from certain member states, particularly Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar (Interview 65). To increase representation from these countries, Japan has funded exchange programs for national-level bureaucrats to join the Secretariat for a year. The 2017 ASEAN staff directory lists a total of 11 such attachment officers, their names all suggesting an origin in those three countries (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017b). In 2018, ASEC was judged as being in the middle of a reform process. External actors estimated an annual growth in staff of 5% (Interview 46), while member state representatives suggested that ASEC would become more important in the future (Interview 56; Interview 74; Interview 80). A new office building was being constructed next to the current ASEAN Secretariat and has since opened, possessing a larger capacity for office and meeting space. Many observers saw this as a sign auguring a future increase in significance for ASEC (Interview 46; Interview 7).

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53

Interaction Practices between Member States and the Secretariat

Having outlined the mandate provided to the Secretariat by member states in a formal sense, I now turn to an analysis of the practices of member state-Secretariat interactions. As outlined before, one particular interest of this study is the investigation of policy-making practices beyond formal mandates. As became clear in Sect. 2.1.2, ASEC’s mandate has been fairly non-specific throughout its history, which means that the analysis needs to be complemented with concrete insights on member state-Secretariat interaction practices. Despite increases in the Secretariat’s capacity and mandate, member state control over the institution remains high, resulting in limited institutional autonomy. This precludes certain types of agency by the Secretariat. Still, the Secretariat exhibits agency in selected areas in both the AEC and the APSC. The tasks delegated and the autonomy provided to ASEC staff differ greatly depending on the policy area in question. While the Secretariat can be said to be acting in line with and beyond its mandate in the AEC, the organization plays a more conservative role in the APSC. Sectoral bodies differed in their relationship to ASEC desk officers, with some delegating significant tasks to the Secretariat, while others forbade desk officers from speaking at meetings (Interview 3). There is also vertical differentiation, with the secretary-general, his deputies, as well as Secretariat staff from director to junior officer levels all having different relationships to particular sectoral bodies. Member states generally permit Secretariat agency at the formulation and monitoring stages, and to a much lesser degree at the agenda-setting and implementation stages. Just as expected, the Secretariat does not have a right to co-decision in any of ASEAN’s sectoral bodies or other intergovernmental forums. An ongoing trend in term of policy making is that member states are requesting ASEC to provide information on certain issues and prepare documents prior to the convention of intergovernmental meetings (Interview 15; Interview 35). Member states have divergent views of the Secretariat, its role and significance. Countries with a highly functioning public sector such as Singapore, Brunei, and Malaysia relied less on ASEC for technical issues such as customs, product standards, competition policy, or border

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management (Interview 2). Representatives of Indonesia and the Philippines, meanwhile, have gone public with their support for a stronger ASEAN Secretariat (Interview 56; Interview 74). While member states bear the primary responsibility for ASEC’s role and scope for agency, the organization itself has been said to perpetuate certain features. In spite of the recent growth in ASEC’s mandate and capacities, the Secretariat’s staff was described as “passive, with staff being careful not to be seen as driving any agendas” (Interview 6). Some former staff and external actors saw ASEC’s role in aspects of policy making decreasing, resulting from a “vicious cycle” (Interview 16), with ASEC staff carrying out fewer and fewer activities over time (Interview 2). While past generations of ASEC bureaucrats were seen as having given more substantial guidance in the shape of policy recommendations and drafts for member states, current staff were seen as “sitting quietly in meetings unless called up” (Interview 16). The organization was seen as having become less forward-thinking and dynamic compared to the time around the introduction of the charter, increasingly employing “notetakers” (Interview 2), although observers admitted that this may simply be a nostalgic perspective. Another area where the institution was seen as having taken a step backward is in project management, where in the past ASEC staff used to provide their own proposals (Interview 16). There may be a significant difference in perception of external actors and Secretariat staff themselves, as well as between different parts of the institution. Some ASEC staff instead saw the institution as getting more involved over time (Interview 25). There were also suggestions that ASEC was improving in terms of substantial policy contributions and technical expertise after a decade of decreasing importance. The following sections will assess two crucial relationships of the Secretariat with member state-led institutions within ASEAN and how they affect policy-making practice: the sectoral bodies and the Committee of Permanent Representatives. 2.1.5

Interactions with Sectoral Bodies

As noted above, the most significant member state-led institutions within ASEAN are the intergovernmental working groups, the sectoral bodies. As visible in Figs. 2.2 and 2.3, ASEAN contains multiple tiers of bodies, which meet in various configurations and deliberate on issues in the policy areas under their purview. It should be noted that the two figures still do

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not contain all sectoral bodies that exist within ASEAN. In 2007, the last time a comprehensive count was done, ASEAN numbered 170 sectoral bodies (ASEAN Secretariat, 2007). Given that sectoral bodies are allowed to form their own sub-bodies, not all of which are publicly listed, and ASEAN’s significant institutional expansion that has taken place over the past 10 years, the actual number of sectoral bodies today is likely over 200. The majority of bodies only meet one or two times a year (Interview 22; Interview 3). The bodies frequently permit agency by either ASEC or external actors in the interim, providing a window of opportunity for policy contributions during the intersessional periods. The sectoral bodies have been described as “small, close knit-groups of people that know each other well” (Interview 37). In many cases, these groups have been consistent in their membership over several years, which has led to members building up close relationships and developing rapport on policy issues (Interview 3; Interview 37; Interview 48). This is not the case for all sectoral bodies, however. The political reach of the bureaucrats that participate in sectoral bodies, particularly those in lower-level technical bodies, within their own ministries, has been questioned. Former SG Ong Keng Yong argued that [f]requently, the ASEAN agenda is left to officials in selected ministries who are not full-time implementers of the ASEAN plans and they are often distracted by other bureaucratic responsibilities. (Ong, 2011, p. 94)

In addition, turnover in sectoral body membership has been said to hamper consistency in cooperation (Interview 3; Interview 37). Beyond these issues, effectiveness in sectoral body cooperation also depends on other factors such as the complexity of the issues discussed, the degree of activism by the sectoral body representatives, and the frequency of meetings and potential additional activities (Interview 3). In ideal cases, sectoral bodies can turn into spaces where countries can learn from one another (Interview 37), akin to epistemic communities (Haas, 1992). With the adoption of the charter, ASEAN has introduced reforms aiming to facilitate policy implementation in member states. First, a push for sectoral work plans was supposed to solidify policies, enable sectoral bodies to move past constant formulation, more clearly identify capacity gaps, and seek external support. The second and most significant change was the reform of the member states’ national ASEAN secretariats, one of the earliest ASEAN structures, tasked with overseeing inter-ministerial coordination and streamlining regional policy impulses

AIA Council

HTLF-EI

AITRI

CCC CPTFWG CECWG CCBWG

CCCA

CCS

CCI

ACCSQ

TF-DSM

ASWSC

REPP-SSN

AFOC

NRSE-SSN

Joint Committee on ASEAN Cooperation & Joint Approaches in Agriculture & Forest Products

ASOF

AHSOM

TNGs

AWGATE ATWGARD

SMEWG

ASWGFi

ASWGL

ASWGC

EE&C-SSN

HAPUA

AWG Halal AFSRB

SOME

AMEM

SOM AMAF

ASWGAC

Task Force on Exchange Rate Arrangement

ACBF

AWGIPC

ACCSQ

CCI

CCS

AFDM-WG

AFDM

AMAF

WGIC

Council of Bureaux

AIC

AIRM

Customs DG

SEOM

AFMM

Fig. 2.2 Sectoral bodies in the ASEAN Economic Community

AFTA Council

AEM

AECC

ASEAN Summit

HLFC

SWGSKRL

AMBDC SC

AMBDC

ACC

WGTIM

WGSMD

WGMID

WGCBM

ASOMM

AMMin

TFI

SCOSA

SCNCER

SCMST

CWG

ACCT SWGTI

TFS SCMIT

LTWG

TFMp

TFM

NTOs

M-ATM

SCMSAT

MTWG

WG ES & ICB WG UADD & E-Govt

SCMG

TFWG

STOM

SCIRD

ATRC

ATM

ATWG

WG EC & ITF

TELSOM

TELMIN

WG AII

SCFST

SCB

COST

AMMST

56 L. M. MÜLLER

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ASEAN Summit

57

ACC

APSC Council

ARF

ADMM

ARF SOM

ADSOM

ISG on CMB & PD

ADSOM WG

SEANWFZ

AMM

Commission

Executive Committee of the SEANWFZ Commission

ACCSM

ASC

SOM

ALAWMM

AMMTC

SOM DP

AICHR

SOMTC

DGICM

ASOD

ACW

WG-CT

AIIF

IAI-TF

WG-TIP

AMICF

ACTC

WG-CC

EMHTLWG

WG-AS

JACCMWG

ISM DOD

ASLOM

AGLOP ALF

WG-ITWT

HSU

Fig. 2.3 Sectoral bodies in the ASEAN Political-Security Community

for implementation at the national level. The introduction of the national secretariats as central players in national policy coordination on ASEAN affairs was supposed to improve implementation. But the lack of specifications on how the secretariats should be structured and empowered led to large differences in institutional design between member states. In most cases, the national secretariats have been set up under the ministries of foreign affairs, due to the fact that they already had designated directors general of ASEAN Affairs. While some institutional setups, such as that of Malaysia, have been described as functional, those of Indonesia and several other countries have been described as ineffective, failing to advocate for ASEAN concerns in other ministries. This is not necessarily an ASEAN issue, as the difficulties of inter-ministerial coordination remain a general challenge of public administrations (Lægreid et al., 2014). In the case of ASEAN, however, the challenge is compounded by the complex nature of decision making by the sectoral bodies. Faced with resistance to policy implementation in various ministries, the foreign ministries of

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some ASEAN member states see it as their role to push for certain policy priorities (Interview 69; Interview 79). The introduction of more substantial sectoral work plans following the adoption of the Charter has resulted in clearer policy objectives and often also more specific commitments for sectoral bodies and member states. This is particularly visible in the AEC, but also in the APSC. Even prior to the charter, a number of sectoral bodies had work plans, but since then, more homogeneity across bodies has been apparent. Work plans typically outline areas of deliberation and coordination within sectoral bodies, including multi-year programs of activities. Post-charter plans all contain more precise implementation commitments, timelines, and more clearly delegated responsibilities, clarifying which agents within governments are supposed to act on a given policy. As of 2020, ASEAN had 23 work plans in the AEC. Based on the work plans, sectoral bodies are now able to track their progress in policy making against their objectives, and more transparently engage both the Secretariat as well as dialogue partners to seek support for certain activities. A number of sectoral work plans in the AEC are public, and ASEC has made attempts to standardize internal management of work plans, establishing databases, and carrying out activity monitoring. The sectoral work plans are an important innovation because they have enabled some sectoral bodies to move beyond pure policy dialogue towards implementation of regional commitments at the national level. While the language of many plans, policies, and agreements remains vague, sometimes deliberately when working groups are unwilling to make commitments (Interview 31), they nonetheless allow for a sort of “soft harmonization” of policy making within sectoral bodies (Interview 3). ASEC divisions and external actors consider the sectoral work plans to be the key documents guiding their work (Interview 37). It has also been highlighted that the emergence of the sectoral plans has made it easier for external actors to engage with sectoral bodies. Partners observed an impact of the plans on sectoral body representatives too, who became more focused on their agendas following the adoption of the work plans (Interview 22). In the following, dynamics of member state agency in policy making in the ASEAN Economic Community and the Political-Security Community will be outlined. In the AEC, member states continue to play a dominant role in policy making, although a clear role has been carved out for the Secretariat at various stages of the policy-making process. One particularity of the policy

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areas is that agenda setting and decision making frequently occur in a bottom-up fashion, with proposals emerging from lower-level member state bodies, with higher-level bodies in turn frequently delegating technical discussions to subordinate working groups (Interview 31). This is in stark contrast to the political pillar, where discussions tend to be located at higher levels due to the sensitivity of the issues. According to observers, this is related to the technical complexity of the issues subsumed under the AEC. As a result, the member states have driven an extreme proliferation of intergovernmental bodies under the AEC, even by ASEAN’s high standards (see Fig. 2.2). As a result of the proliferation of sectoral bodies, the policy-making process in ASEAN’s economic pillar is highly disaggregated, even at the ministerial level. Annex 1 of the ASEAN Charter lists thirteen ministerial sectoral bodies in charge of different policy areas.2 These bodies subsume senior officials’ meetings, in some cases multiple ones. The bodies in turn further disaggregate into working groups, which deliberate on increasingly specific policy issues. The number of sectoral bodies and working groups in the AEC has been described as “bewildering” (Interview 2), with observers frequently commenting on the impossibility of knowing all relevant sectoral bodies and understanding their functions. Even ASEC divisions themselves are frequently confused by the number of intergovernmental bodies outside their immediate area of expertise. The key decision-making body within the AEC is the ASEAN Economic Community Council, which takes decisions and oversees the implementation of the blueprint. Of the ministerial bodies, the ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting is the most significant, responsible for overseeing most strategic action plans. Interaction between the Secretariat and these higher-level bodies is limited. ASEC’s divisions deal primarily with the lower-level bodies which deliberate on more specific policy issues. While ASEC staff keep track of the discussions taking place in ministeriallevel bodies, the senior officials’ meetings, which are responsible for 2 These are the ASEAN Economic Ministers Meeting, the ASEAN Free Trade Area Council, the ASEAN Investment Area Council, the ASEAN Finance Ministers’ Meeting, the ASEAN Central Bank Governors’ Meeting, the ASEAN Ministers’ Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry, the ASEAN Ministers’ on Energy Meeting, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Minerals, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Science and Technology, the ASEAN Telecommunications and Information Technology Ministers’ Meeting, the ASEAN Transport Ministers’ Meeting, the Meeting of the ASEAN Tourism Ministers, and the ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation.

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aggregating the inputs of the levels below them and setting the agenda for discussions in higher-level bodies, are more relevant to the work of the Secretariat (Interview 12). The disaggregation of policy-making deliberations across levels of seniority as well as technical areas is an aspect that provides the ASEAN Secretariat with openings for agency, narrowing the shadow that member states cast on the institution. Since decision making at the top is typically an aggregation of decisions made at lower levels, many policy proposals percolate from below to above. It is highly unusual for higher-level bodies to decide on something that has not been suggested from below (Interview 2). The Secretariat can become and is in fact encouraged to become active at multiple levels simultaneously. In the ASEAN Political-Security Community, member state agency in policy-making processes remains relatively opaque and obtaining information about intergovernmental mechanisms is a challenge. The opacity of the APSC results from the lack of outcome documents of any meetings below the senior official level. Documents that are released are in turn generally uninformative regarding decisions taken. Nonetheless, some general statements about member states’ roles in the process can be made. While member states reign supreme in the policy area, small openings do in fact exist for the Secretariat. Still, the shadow cast by the member states is considerably larger than in the AEC. The intergovernmental side of the Political-Security Community is made unique by the comparatively low number of sectoral bodies, at least by ASEAN’s standards (see Fig. 2.3). Policy making is less differentiated than in the AEC, both in terms of disaggregation of policy areas and the number of subordinate technical bodies. This results in more centralized decision making by higher-level bodies as well as fewer bodies being tasked with formulation, decision making, and implementation. It appears that the process is more executive-centered and top-down and that few proposals percolate from lower to higher levels of the sectoral body hierarchy in this pillar. Annex 1 of the ASEAN Charter lists seven major bodies in the Political-Security Pillar.3 Not all bodies are equally active, some appearing to have considerably more traction than others. 3 These are the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the Commission on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting, the ASEAN Law Ministers’ Meeting, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Drug Matters, and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

2

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All sectoral bodies disaggregate into subordinate ones. Unlike the bodies in the AEC, however, the APSC bodies subsume a maximum of two levels below them. The apparent simplicity of decision making in the APSC pillar is complicated by the importance of a small number of sectoral bodies, primarily the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM). This creates a bottleneck in APSC decision making because the AMM is over capacity and finds it hard to deliberate on more technical issues (Interview 60; Interview 63). The AMM and the subordinate Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) are considered a major roadblock for decision making within the APSC, with its agenda seen as “cluttered” by external observers (Interview 63). Non-traditional security issues, for instance, are rarely discussed in depth by the SOM (Interview 63). Tellingly, the AMM and the SOM also do not possess a work plan due to the unpredictability and vast diversity of themes discussed by the bodies (Interview 60). The absence of alternative bodies to discuss these issues as part of a more specialized agenda outside that of foreign ministries is seen as constraining ASEAN’s ability to address such issues with technical expertise (Interview 63). Another issue for the APSC’s institutional architecture and its decisionmaking processes is the parallel nature of forums involving external actors. Due to the inherent consideration of external relations within the political pillar, certain sectoral body meetings are held with partner involvement. These forums, primarily the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus), the ARF, and the EAS, include external actor participation by design and draw organizational capacity from regular sectoral body meetings focused on intra-ASEAN issues. Overlaps and a lack of coordination across bodies also have an impact on intra-ASEAN discussions. Issues of counterterrorism, for instance, are discussed simultaneously by the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC), the AMM, the ARF, the EAS, as well the ADMM-Plus, and their various sub-committees. In some APSC sectoral bodies, discussions appear to be hampered by differing national perceptions of the desirable depth of regional discussions. In some of the more sensitive issue areas such as immigration and human rights, issues that could be voiced in some member states cannot be voiced in regional forums (Interview 71). Member state representatives noted their initial bewilderment over the restrictive norms of negotiation in APSC forums (Interview 51). The involvement of foreign ministries in the majority of discussions is also seen as an obstacle

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to substantial progress (Interview 60; Interview 63). The ministries of foreign affairs’ “culture of deliberation and carefulness” (Interview 63) is viewed as hampering deeper cooperation. Despite consisting of different representatives, however, other sectoral bodies, such as the military-led ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) or the Defence Senior Officials’ Meeting, are not generally considered more effective. The Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime, however, is seen as one of the sectoral bodies with significant traction and output, notable because of a high number of formulated action plans. The body distinguishes itself through its diverse membership, including minsters of the interior (Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore), public security or defense (Brunei, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam) as well as one chief of police (Indonesia) (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019c). This diversity has been suggested as an explanation for the relative progress of this forum compared to others (Interview 63). The centralization of policy-making deliberations in the APSC casts a wide shadow over the ASEAN Secretariat and provides the institution with only few opportunities for agency. Decision making is executivecentered and there generally appears to be an emphasis on dialogue over substantial policy making, both of which discourage participation from a regional public bureaucracy. 2.1.6

Interactions with the Committee of Permanent Representatives

Another key member state body that is relevant for interactions with the Secretariat is the Committee of Permanent Representatives. In addition, this body plays a crucial role in the engagement of external actors, which will be outlined in the following section (Sect. 2.2). The CPR replaced the ASEAN Standing Committee following the adoption of the charter. This body, consisting of the member state ambassadors to ASEAN as well as their staff, was endowed with an expanded mandate to supervise programs and projects by the ASEAN Secretariat. The Standing Committee, consisting of the directors general of ASEAN Affairs from the member states’ foreign ministries, had previously played a fairly withdrawn role, not exhibiting significant agency vis-à-vis the Secretariat or other institutions, mainly providing budgetary oversight and meeting only four times a year (Interview 2), which resulted in more organizational autonomy for the Secretariat (Interview 16; Interview 25). In contrast, the CPR now meets several times each week on a variety of

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issues (Interview 53; Interview 74). The reform of the CPR aimed at a concentration of decision-making power in Jakarta. Ideally, it had been imagined, member states would relocate their national ASEAN divisions to Jakarta to facilitate decision making (Interview 16). This, however, did not happen and instead, the CPR became a body of the member states’ ambassadors, representing the national directors general of ASEAN affairs (Interview 16). Formally, the body is seen as underpinning most ASEAN decision making (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017a), but in practice, the CPR defers to decisions made by the sectoral bodies. As the only member state body that is permanently located in Jakarta, it is in a unique position to deal with both external actors and ASEC. In its terms of reference, the CPR is, most significantly, tasked with overseeing ASEC’s operations, approving its budget, and coordinating with the secretary-general “in performing its role to monitor the implementation of ASEAN’s decisions and agreements” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017a, p. 19). In addition, the CPR is responsible for reporting to various superior member state bodies, as well as for the coordination of external actors, and acts as the approving authority for cooperation projects financed from dialogue partner funds. It also checks activities by ASEC, ensuring that the institution operates according to the specifications of member states. This makes the emergence of the CPR possibly the most significant reform of the ASEAN Charter with a view to the actions of ASEC. Many observers tied the CPR’s “stranglehold” over ASEC to Surin Pitsuwan’s tenure, which was characterized first by an assertion of ASEC autonomy and then by an assertion of member state control (Interview 44). This resulted in ASEC having lost “a lot of clout” and “a yard of pace” as a result of CPR control (Interview 44). Secretariat staff frequently referred to the CPR as involving itself in ASEC activities and checking on individual ASEAN divisions. The introduction of the body is widely seen as having complicated regional negotiations in general because it introduced aspects of horse trading among member states and slowed down decision making (Interview 44). Despite its presence in Jakarta, the CPR is representative of the trend that more decision making is now taking place in ASEAN member states. Because the permanent representatives are affiliated with their foreign ministries and positioned below the director general level, they habitually have to clear decisions with the foreign ministry and other ministries back home (Interview 63). In addition, they were said to lack

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the technical expertise to make decisions regarding projects under the AEC and the ASCC (Interview 53). Moves were made to improve this situation through the secondment of experts to the delegations of ASEAN member states in Jakarta (Interview 69). CPR representatives were eager to highlight that the institution remained under development and that member states were still attempting to find the best modus operandi for the CPR. While researchers have compared the CPR to the EU’s Committee of Permanent Representatives (Coreper), which led to improved coordination among EU member states and an empowerment of the bureaucracy in Brussels (Murray & Moxon-Browne, 2013), the introduction of the CPR appears to have had the opposite effect on ASEAN. While the charter drafters’ intention may have been a closer centralization of decision making in Jakarta, what in fact occurred was an increasing “intergovernmentalization” of decision making, with detrimental effects for ASEAN as a whole (Interview 44). Instead of facilitating the connection between the member states and ASEC as expected, the CPR became a tool to rein in the Secretariat (Interview 2). In addition, the CPR has been used to reassert member state control over dialogue partners. Even if we assume that ASEAN’s intent was to emulate the EU, the CPR model was localized (Acharya, 2009) in a way that made its function fully unrecognizable to observers familiar with the Coreper it was presumably drawn from.

2.2

Member States and the Dialogue Partners

Following the analysis of member state-Secretariat relations, the second part of this chapter will assess the role of ASEAN member states in engaging and managing dialogue partners. Compared to member stateSecretariat relations, ASEAN-dialogue partner relations are considerably less fraught with historical baggage and complexity. Still, the member states have introduced several institutional mechanisms to exert control over dialogue partner support to ASEAN. Due to its central role in ASEAN’s institutional processes, the ASEAN Secretariat plays a facilitation and networking role not just between ASEAN’s variegated bodies, but also between the member states and the external environment. This results in the Secretariat being occasionally involved in policy-making processes in presence, if not always in substance.

2

2.2.1

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ASEAN’s External Environment

ASEAN is embedded in an environment characterized by a high number of external actors engaged with the organization. While 92 representatives are officially accredited to the organization, ASEAN’s eleven dialogue partners represent the most relevant relationships. Partner relations are highly formalized and hierarchical, with ASEAN possessing various levels of partner engagement, generally denoting the depth and significance of the relationship. Only ten countries and one organization are labeled dialogue partners. These eleven, including Australia, Canada, PR China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the UK, the US, and Russia, provide the bulk of diplomatic engagement and external institutional support to ASEAN and are the main focus of this book. Another tier of so-called sectoral partnerships, including Brazil, Norway, Pakistan, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, engages in cooperation in selected areas. The conditions of these relationships, however, remain under negotiation (Interview 33; Interview 7). Finally, Chile, France, Germany, and Italy are considered development partners. In the case of Germany, this is due to its engagement in capacity building both with the Secretariat as well as with ASEAN member states as a part of its development cooperation portfolio (Interview 7; Interview 9). ASEAN also maintains relations with international organizations, including the UN, the Asian Development Bank, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Except for the UN, these organizations do not possess very profound relationships with ASEAN. Australia, China, the EU, Japan, the US, and Germany all give substantial support to ASEAN, with Canada, India, South Korea, New Zealand, and Russia all providing additional project funds. Table 2.1 shows an overview of the support provided to ASEAN since the beginning of the relationships up until 2013. The large differences in the level of funds listed in Table 2.1 result to a significant degree from the criteria applied to counting financial support. External actors’ support modalities and the specific activities towards which support is channeled differ so strongly that a comparison between financial flows is almost meaningless. Japan’s ASEAN Integration Fund, for instance, which has been endowed with $680 million since 2006 (Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund, 2018), appears to be a powerful

Australia Canada China European Union India Japan Republic of Korea New Zealand Russia US Germany ASEAN Plus Three United Nations Total

External actor

142,178,391

960,001

90,759,190 2,722,720 378,909 6,722,081 1,160,213 5,341,146 2,434,611 4,457,095 765,788 26,476,637

APSC

215,462,197

1,100,470 30,025,174 1,782,832 23,533,357 3,913,265 1,307,130 153,657 46,707,687 15,645,540 30,000

91,263,085

AEC 7,362,401 12,641,200 2,228,500 2,667,566 14,371,104 362,437,413 11,390,659 42,917,360 1,211,291 5,278,614 9,956,250 1,003,595 430,000 473,895,953

ASCC

59,721,410

332,440 53,550,190 646,720 4,220,211

971,849

IAI

63,359,362

21,780,641 10,615,690

7,289,756

8,288,429 976,294 91,606 14,316,946

General

198,644,954 16,340,214 3,799,485 53,731,767 17,646,589 452,151,862 18,385,255 52,901,796 2,130,736 100,243,579 36,217,480 1,993,596 430,000 954,617,313

Total

Table 2.1 Total dialogue partner contributions to ASEAN from beginning of the relationships until October 2013 (US$) (Nair, 2015)

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tool to influence policy making within the organization. However, the fund has poured a large amount of its endowment into annual student exchanges, due to ASEAN’s inability to absorb the funds in another way. Only $305 million were invested into ASEAN activities outside of youth exchange (Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund, 2018). The easiest distinction that can be drawn between dialogue partners is between those that operate with demand-based funds and those that operate with programmatic portfolios. On the demand-based side, Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, and India have all set up trust funds to support ASEAN. These are managed by ASEAN itself or by technical assistance teams based within the Secretariat. While sometimes outlining priority policy areas such as people-to-people exchanges (Interview 40), sustainable development, or cybersecurity (Interview 31), they generally permit any approach from ASEC or ASEAN sectoral bodies to support the organization in a demand-based fashion (Interview 67). Some funds, such as the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund and the ASEANRepublic of Korea Cooperation Fund, release information on the projects supported, while others such as the Chinese or the ASEAN Plus Three fund, do not release public information. The EU, the US, and Germany, meanwhile, conduct more programmatic support projects focused on particular policy areas, based on supply-side policy priorities (Interview 46; Interview 6) such as trade facilitation (Interview 28; Interview 7), or education (Interview 8). There are also some more idiosyncratic types of external institutional support, but these are not the focus of this book. Japan and Korea, for instance, support ASEAN through the establishment of dedicated institutions, such as the ASEAN-Korea Center and the ASEAN-Japan Center. To summarize, ASEAN can draw from a wellspring of external partnerships, although the bulk of external support to the organization comes from a relatively small numbers of actors. The dialogue partners differ in their support modalities to ASEAN, which provides the organization with some choice regarding which partners to engage. The following section will further delve into the organization’s partner management strategies. 2.2.2

ASEAN’s Partner Management Strategies

ASEAN possess an elaborate system to manage the engagement with its dialogue partners, consisting of multiple layers of institutional coordination mechanisms involving various member state-led organs, as well as,

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occasionally, the ASEAN Secretariat. In addition, ASEAN relies on policy documents to set the agenda on external institutional support, namely the sectoral work plans and plans of action guiding partner engagement. ASEAN is characterized by its strong reliance on so-called +1 coordination mechanisms, isolating external actors in a multitude of bilateral relationships with the organization. In addition, the member states clearly pursue an enmeshment strategy, involving various external actors in a bid to attain complementarity or competition in external support within a given policy area. Given the preponderance of member states in ASEAN policy making, they are also the key players for the management of external relationships. Dialogue partners are assigned one country coordinator each, which are tasked with the formal coordination of a given relationship. Beyond these country coordinator relationships, dialogue partners are also often engaged directly with the chairs of sectoral bodies they are interested in engaging with. In cases where individual ASEAN member states approach a particular dialogue partner to support a particular sectoral body, this actor is termed country proponent. Prior to or in tandem with this approach, the Secretariat may be involved as a facilitator of the relationship between the dialogue partner and the beneficiary sectoral body. The CPR, finally, is the gatekeeper for external support, adding another layer of approval based on collective member state preferences. The negotiation of external support to a sectoral body work plan usually takes place in a triangular relationship between the sectoral body, the dialogue partner, and ASEC (Interview 15). Following coordination with sectoral bodies and the Secretariat, the Committee of Permanent Representatives also plays a role in the coordination of dialogue partners. The CPR is deeply involved in the formulation and approval of institutional support projects and, perhaps most importantly, sees it as its key mission to ensure that external projects are in line with member states’ objectives (Interview 53; Interview 74). Because the CPR is the key gateway that all ASEAN-approved support projects have to pass through, many partners view the CPR as the main bottleneck in the provision of external support to ASEAN (Interview 2; Interview 5). The CPR representatives are also involved at the annual joint coordination committee meetings, which review and set priorities for each dialogue partner’s cooperation portfolio. Approval from these meetings is required for potential cooperation projects, which frequently creates difficulties in partners’ project preparation timelines (Interview 46).

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Although it plays a technical role, by virtue of its central position, the CPR is not seen as providing much thematic substance by dialogue partners. Once project proposals enter the CPR, they have usually already passed through the hands of other actors, typically a sectoral body chair, a proponent country, and the ASEAN Secretariat. In assessing potential partner projects, the key question asked by the CPR is usually whether a sectoral body has already approved the potential project (Interview 2). The primary value provided by the CPR, from the member states’ perspective, is control over whether projects are in line with collective member state preferences. As will be shown in Sections 4.2 and 6.2, this sometimes leads dialogue partners to circumvent ASEAN as an organization, carrying out activities directly with ASEAN member states. The Secretariat historically played a large role in managing member state-dialogue partner relations, but there have been some reforms in how ASEC engages in this process. Prior to the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, ASEC had an explicit role in mobilizing partner support, providing a direct link between partners and the sectoral bodies, without recourse to the foreign ministries of the member states (Interview 16; Interview 2; Interview 44; Interview 51). This autonomy was constrained following the introduction of the CPR as a supervisory body. For sectoral body representatives, the contrast was striking, the pre-charter Secretariat having offered concrete external support projects, but no longer providing such services (Interview 51). Still, some Secretariat staff and dialogue partners have noted that ASEC continues to play a role in dialogue partner engagement, in some sectors. True to its character as the Involved Networker, ASEC remains primarily a conduit for external partner engagement, rather than its beneficiary. Beyond institutional management mechanisms, ASEAN also uses various documents to manage relations with the dialogue partners. The most significant documents are the sectoral work plans as well as the plans of action that exist for all eleven dialogue partners. The sectoral work plans have created a clearer agenda for partners to attach to, with many partners only supporting activities within the various strategic documents (Interview 28; Interview 7). In the case of the funds from Australia, China, India, Japan, and South Korea, which are operated in collaboration with the Secretariat, the majority of projects supported are demand-based, drawn directly from requests from sectoral bodies, which are in turn based on the work plans that those bodies have. This is a process that began with the Vientiane Action Programme, which first provided a blueprint to

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which partners could attach their ASEAN support (Interview 16; Interview 67; Interview 7). Today, the work plans not only include more concrete commitments to activities to be carried out, but frequently also considerations of which external actors may support particular projects. This is an extension of ASEAN’s move towards more substantial policy commitments, outlined in Sections 3.1 and 5.1. Dialogue partner support is not only governed by the sectoral work plans, but also by bilateral plans of action, which provide agendas for each dialogue partner relationship, outlining priorities for institutional support projects. These five-year documents, negotiated at the ministerial level, are based on ASEAN and dialogue partner inputs. The plans of action are very general in nature and are used by both ASEAN and the external actors to ensure that their priorities for the next five years are included in their joint agenda (Interview 5). Secretariat staff are sometimes involved in plan of action formulation and argued that their aim is to keep the documents broad so that changing priorities in relationships can be addressed without altering the plan of action (Interview 35). The efforts to keep plans of action broad, however, frequently result in vast documents that make it difficult to prioritize activities and end up spreading financial commitments thinly across issue areas, resulting in a lack of tangible impact on individual objectives (Interview 4). Because of this, partners have attempted to narrow down their plans of action, rebuffing ASEAN approaches in areas in which the dialogue partner is not interested in engaging (Interview 38; Interview 4). Some ASEC staff suggested that the plans of action are used as a tool to ensure complementarity between partners. This is not apparent, with large swaths of the documents similar in content and wording, making it difficult to identify a tangible impact on support projects. Looking at the engagement of dialogue partners by sectoral bodies, individual member states, or the Secretariat, the sectoral work plans and the partner plans of action together, ASEAN’s partner management system comes into view. The principle organizing ASEAN’s external relations is ASEAN centrality. Ultimately, the system is set up to enable control by the foreign ministries, either through the sectoral bodies or the CPR (Interview 51; Interview 79). ASEAN is known for its sophisticated partner management mechanisms in other areas. In its East Asian regional forums, the prevalent mode of coordination is individual engagement of external actors through socalled ASEAN+1 meetings (Müller, 2021b). This practice has received

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much criticism from external actors, who lament that it makes coordination difficult and encourages overlaps and redundancies between support projects (Interview 38). Dialogue partners have reported that similar tendencies are inherent in ASEAN’s management of its dialogue partners in engagement related to regional policy making. The sectoral bodies and the Secretariat generally control engagement of dialogue partners and do not frequently coordinate activities across different partnerships. While some sectoral body work plans enable donor mapping (Interview 3), they are not always shared with the dialogue partners. Because of this, any overview of external actor engagement is only in ASEAN’s possession, putting the organization in charge of coordination. Only in some areas does ASEAN enable limited coordination between external actors, for instance through annual stakeholder meetings in connectivity (Müller, 2021a) or the publication of external support databases under the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019b). Such processes are relatively new exceptions to the institutional rule that is the ASEAN+1 system. Taken together, ASEAN’s dialogue partner management mechanisms appear to support one strategic objective: the enmeshment of various actors with the aim of ensuring maximum breadth and diversity of engagement. The results of this strategy, however, depend on the policy area in question. While the AEC exhibits partner specialization, the APSC is characterized by significant overlap in partner engagement. This is more closely elaborated in Chapters 4 and 6. Secretariat staff and member state representatives have stated their objective as channeling external partner support into particular areas and ensuring complementarity between partners (Interview 15; Interview 74). Due to the prevalence of ASEAN+1 relationships, however, external actors remain skeptical, frequently viewing partner programs as competitive rather than complementary. What appears to be a hedging strategy by ASEAN from the outside has also been described as such from within ASEC (Interview 25). Ultimately, the use of +1 relationships is ASEAN’s way of extracting maximum external resource commitments (Interview 7) while ensuring ownership of external support programs by the sectoral bodies. In sum, ASEAN possesses an elaborate institutional system for managing dialogue partner interactions, involving a multitude of member state bodies and the Secretariat. The objective of this system is clearly to retain ownership of support as well as to channel projects into particular policy areas and member state-led formats. The outcome of external

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institutional support, analyzed in Chapters 4 and 6, is a result of this management strategy.

2.3

Summary

ASEAN’s delegation choices to its Secretariat are generally viewed as restrictive and non-consequential. Still, as this chapter has shown, there has been continuous progress in how the member states and their Secretariat interact. Over the years, there has been a steady expansion of mandate, a rethinking of organizational design, and gradual progress in interaction practices. Member states continue to cast a shadow over the Secretariat, but that shadow appears to be getting smaller. As will become apparent in the following chapters, there are subtle but fundamental changes underway, affecting the role of the Secretariat and its contribution to regional policy making. Member state-Secretariat interactions have not been without their issues and particularly the post-charter years under Surin Pitsuwan appear to have been a test for the relationship. While the ASEAN Charter is generally perceived as a milestone in regional cooperation, it is partly seen as a setback for the ASEAN Secretariat. Some institutional innovations of the charter, such as the introduction of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, have contributed to the assertion of member state control, marginalizing the Secretariat. Others, such as the introduction of sectoral work plans, have led to a stronger involvement of the Secretariat in policy-making processes. In the end, the record appears to be mixed. The agency of the ASEAN Secretariat differs considerably depending on the policy area in question. Chapters 3 and 5 will further analyze Secretariat agency under the conditions outlined in this chapter. With regard to member state-dialogue partner relations, trends similar to those affecting Secretariat interactions are apparent. Post-ASEANCharter, the member states have introduced a number of mechanisms to manage their partnerships, asserting member state control over the process. While the Secretariat preserves a facilitative and coordinating role, it has become marginalized in these processes. Member states continue to cast a shadow here, permitting some forms of dialogue partner engagement and precluding others. Chapters 4 and 6 will further outline dialogue partner agency under the conditions outlined in this chapter.

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References Acharya, A. (2009). Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism. Cornell University Press. ASEAN Secretariat. (1967). The ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration). https://asean.org/the-asean-declaration-bangkok-declaration-bangkok8-august-1967/ ASEAN Secretariat. (1976a). Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat. http://agreement.asean.org/media/download/20140117151823.pdf ASEAN Secretariat. (1976b). The Declaration of ASEAN Concord. https:// asean.org/?static_post=declaration-of-asean-concord-indonesia-24-february1976b ASEAN Secretariat. (1992). Protocol Amending the Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat. ASEAN Secretariat. (2003). The Declaration of ASEAN Concord II, Bali, Indonesia, 7 October 2003. ASEAN One Vision One Identity One Community. https://asean.org/?static_post=declaration-of-asean-concord-ii-bali-con cord-ii ASEAN Secretariat. (2007). The ASEAN Summit and the Ministerial Bodies of ASEAN. ASEAN Secretariat. (2008). ASEAN Charter. ASEAN Secretariat. (2014). Executive Summary—The Report and Recommendations of the High Level Task Force on Strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat and Reviewing the ASEAN Organs to the 15th Meeting of the ASEAN Coordinating Council. ASEAN Secretariat. (2015). ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025. ASEAN Secretariat. (2016a). ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint 2025. ASEAN Secretariat. (2016b). ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint 2025. ASEAN Secretariat. (2017a). Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR) Handbook. ASEAN Secretariat. (2017b, February). Staff Directory—By Floor. ASEAN Secretariat. (2019a). ASEAN Secretariat. https://asean.org/asean/ asean-secretariat/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2019b). IAI Work Plan III 2016–2020: On-going Activities. https://asean.org/asean-economic-community/initiative-for-asean-int egration-iai-and-narrowing-the-development-gap-ndg/activities/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2019c, February 27). Composition of the AMMTC. https:// asean.org/storage/2012/05/AMMTC-Leaders-as-27-February-2019c.pdf Chalermpalanupap, T. (2010). Life in ASEAN After the Entry into Force of the ASEAN Charter—Implications and Follow-ups. In S. Tiwari (Ed.), ASEAN: Life After the Charter (pp. 45–65). Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Dosch, J. (2013). The ASEAN economic community: The status of implementation, challenges and bottlenecks. CIMB ASEAN Research Institute. Haas, P. M. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination. International Organization, 46(1), 1–35. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0020818300001442 Hooghe, L., Marks, G., Lenz, T., Bezuijen, J., Ceka, B., & Derderyan, S. (2017). Measuring International Authority. A Postfunctionalist Theory of Governance: Volume III . Oxford University Press. Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. (2018). Japan-ASEAN Cooperation. https:// jaif.asean.org/pdf/JAIF_Brochure_2018.pdf Lægreid, P., Sarapuu, K., Rykkja, L. H., & Randma-Liiv, T. (2014). Organizing for Coordination in the Public Sector: Practices and Lessons from 12 European Countries. Palgrave Macmillan. Müller, L. M. (2021a). Challenges to ASEAN Centrality and Hedging in Connectivity governance—Regional and National Pressure Points. The Pacific Review, 34(5), 747–777. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2020. 1757741 Müller, L. M. (2021b). Pre-Eminent or Subordinate? An Organisational Environment Perspective on the EU’s Security Cooperation with ASEAN and ECOWAS. European Review of International Studies, 8(3), 413–442. https://doi.org/10.1163/21967415-08030002 Muqbil, I. (2015). ASEAN Secretariat Under Strain, Overwhelmed by Workload, Inadequate Resources, Tourism Ministers Told. https://www.travel-impactnewswire.com/2015/01/asean-secretariat-under-strain-overwhelmed-by-wor kload-inadequate-resources-tourism-ministers-told/ Murray, P., & Moxon-Browne, E. (2013). The European Union as a Template for Regional Integration? The Case of ASEAN and Its Committee of Permanent Representatives. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 51(3), 522–537. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12008 Nair, D. (2015). Saving the States’ Face: An Ethnography of the ASEAN Secretariat and Diplomatic Field in Jakarta. Thesis Submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics. Nair, D. (2016). A Strong Secretariat, a Strong ASEAN? A Re-evaluation. ISEAS Perspective (8). Ong, K. Y. (2011). ASEAN Economic Integration: The Strategic Imperative. In Y. Y. Lee (Ed.), ASEAN Matters! Reflecting on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (pp. 87–96). World Scientific. Pitsuwan, S. (2011). ASEAN’s Challenge: Some Reflections and Recommendations on Strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat. Rattanasevee, P. (2014). Towards Institutionalised Regionalism: The Role of Institutions and Prospects for Institutionalisation in ASEAN. Springerplus, 3(1), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-556

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Ravenhill, J. (1995). Economic Cooperation in Southeast Asia: Changing Incentives. Asian Survey, 35(9), 850–866. https://doi.org/10.2307/264 5786

CHAPTER 3

The Involved Networker: Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Economic Community

This chapter addresses the exercise of agency by the ASEAN Secretariat within the ASEAN Economic Community, both in relation to the member states, as well as the dialogue partners. The policy cycle is applied as a heuristic to identify instances of agency. Analyzing the actions of the ASEAN Secretariat in agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring allows for a more detailed assessment of the bureaucracy’s role in the realm of economic cooperation. As the following sections will show, the Secretariat plays a significant role in agenda setting, formulation, implementation support, and monitoring. Calls for a strengthened Secretariat appear to have been heeded within the AEC, which is the part of the bureaucracy with the strongest institutional impetus, mandate, and capacity. It is important to remain realistic about both the legal footing of the Secretariat as well as its de facto influence, however. Despite its growing role, the Secretariat still only plays a restricted part in policy making within the AEC, relegated to a subordinate role vis-à-vis the member states, acting as the Involved Networker. This chapter begins with an outline of the policy dynamics within ASEAN’s economic pillar, the ASEAN Economic Community (3.1). Section 3.2 will then outline the agency of the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Economic Community in general terms. Following this general

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_3

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overview of ASEC’s role, the sub-sections will address the specific stages of agenda setting (3.2.1), formulation (3.2.2), implementation (3.2.3), and monitoring (3.2.4). The chapter concludes with a summary (3.3).

3.1

The ASEAN Economic Community

Since the start of the twenty-first century, it has become increasingly clear that the impetus for ASEAN’s regional cooperation lies in the area of trade and economic cooperation. Compared with the Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community has seen significant progress with regard to regional policies developed, functioning of institutional mechanisms, as well as policy implementation at the member state level. Although recent years have seen a speeding up of economic cooperation, the primacy of this sector within ASEAN is not an altogether new development. Economic cooperation has been a foundational concern of ASEAN, with the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 already including nascent objectives. ASEAN made initial efforts to lower its tariffs early in 1977, signing the Agreement on ASEAN Preferential Trading Arrangements, which was amended by protocols in 1987 and 1995. Most observers agree, however, that ASEAN’s economic cooperation began in earnest with the adoption of the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the concurrent Common Effective Preferential Tariff in 1992 (Martin, 2011). While ASEAN has since then progressed in the reduction of its tariffs, its achievements have been offset by the rise of non-tariff measures (Menon & Melendez, 2017). The organizational trend towards more substantial policy outputs is most clearly visible in this policy area. With the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, there was an internal push by some member states as well as elements within the ASEAN Secretariat (Interview 67), for more precise and detailed regional strategic documents. The first such document, the AEC Blueprint, was adopted in 2007.1 Since 2007, ASEAN has signed 20 agreements within its economic pillar, as well as 61 protocols amending existing agreements, compared to just four in the political-security pillar during the same period. Concurrent with this growth in documents with

1 The plan focuses on four sub-pillars: (1) Single Market and Production Base, (2) Competitive Economic Region, (3) Equitable Economic Region, and (4) Integration into Global Economy (ASEAN Secretariat, 2008).

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legal character, the sectoral bodies subsumed under the AEC have formulated 23 distinct sectoral work plans, also known as strategic action plans, as well as additional work plans focused on cross-sectoral issues. The most recent iteration of this AEC agenda was condensed in the AEC Blueprint 2025, adopted in 2016. Literature on ASEAN’s economic cooperation efforts has previously focused on the progress towards the so-called establishment of the Economic Community, which was slated for 2015 (Dosch, 2013). This has created some misunderstandings, as it suggests an end point to economic cooperation within ASEAN. In reality, regional economic cooperation is a much more gradual and disaggregated process, the degree of substance, commitment, and ambition varying across issue areas as well as member states (Dosch, 2013; Plummer & Chia, 2009). ASEAN has still not managed to implement many of the measures slated for the “establishment” of the AEC. The current AEC Blueprint contains 105 of the 506 measures from the initial 2007 blueprint, as they had not been implemented by the original 2015 deadline (Menon & Melendez, 2017). The overarching goals of the new blueprint have not changed significantly from the first plan,2 but the document has narrowed down the economic agenda of the organization. ASEAN now downplays the importance of the ASEAN Single Market, while outlining objectives that are closer to the current reality of economic cooperation within the region. The new blueprint has been judged superior to previous plans by external actors, which viewed previous plans as containing unrealistic expectations (Interview 14). The current objectives of the AEC Blueprint 2025, in contrast, are seen as less wide-ranging and ambitious, and hence more attainable (Interview 14; Interview 7). Key policies under the current blueprint include the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement; the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Services, which resulted in the ASEAN Trade in Services Agreement; the ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement; as well as the Mutual Recognition Agreements for professionals between ASEAN member states, all under the single market pillar of the AEC. Additional significant policy objectives include competition policy, and infrastructure initiatives such as the ASEAN highway network, the 2 Focusing on the five “characteristics”: (1) A Highly Integrated and Cohesive Economy, (2) A Competitive, Innovative, and Dynamic ASEAN, (3) Enhanced Connectivity and Sectoral Cooperation, (4) A Resilient, Inclusive, People-Oriented, and People-Centered ASEAN, and (5) A Global ASEAN (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015).

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single shipping market, and the open skies agreement. The majority of sectoral bodies under the AEC now have sectoral work plans, outlining specific objectives and priorities. Prior to the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, many sectoral bodies had a diffuse and unregulated approach to policy making (Interview 3). This changed starting in 2008, with the change accelerating in recent years. Post-charter sectoral work plans all contain more precise implementation commitments, timelines, and more clearly delegated responsibilities, clarifying which agents within governments are supposed to act on a given policy. Some directorate staff described their relevant work plan as “their bible” (Interview 31), noting that the plan contains all information relevant to the division’s operations. Dialogue partners observed an impact of the plans on sectoral body representatives too, who became more focused on their agendas following the emergence of the work plans (Interview 22). While the language of many plans, policies, and agreements remains vague, sometimes deliberately when working groups are unwilling to make commitments (Interview 31), they, nonetheless, allow for a sort of “soft harmonization” (Interview 3). This occurred in the area of competition policy, where all ASEAN member states prepared a competition policy in line with regional specifications. ASEAN’s move towards more precise work plans ties in with changing intergovernmental agreement ratification requirements under the AEC. Another interesting aspect is that the ASEAN Economic Community appears to move away from ASEAN’s consensus-principle. The most recent agreements under the AEC have less strict ratification requirements, often allowing a coalition of the willing to ratify an agreement that will automatically come into force without requiring ratification by all ASEAN member states. This is a major innovation in the historically very consensus-focused ASEAN.

3.2

Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the AEC

Across ASEAN’s three pillars, the AEC is the one with the most substantial role for the ASEAN Secretariat. The relatively more significant role of the Secretariat is borne out in a number of official policy documents released over the years. Larger mandates for economic divisions within the Secretariat have been included in ASEAN documents from the 1990s, in early documents on economic cooperation.

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The 1997 ASEAN Agreement on Customs called for ASEC to “provide support for supervising, coordinating and reviewing the implementation of the Agreement” (ASEAN Secretariat, 1997). The AEC Blueprint is widely seen as the document solidifying ASEC’s role and empowering its economic divisions to engage in policy-making activities. Even prior to the blueprint, however, certain divisions have already been considered activist, such as, for instance, the Competition and Intellectual Property Division (Interview 3). The more significant role of ASEC in economic policy making is frequently explained with the high degree of technicality of the policy area, as well as member states’ need for research and analysis on various topics (Interview 48). There are also structural features supporting a larger role for the Secretariat, however. The disaggregated nature of the sectoral bodies, outlined in sect. 2.1.5, contributes to a delegation of intergovernmental deliberation and decision making to subordinate bodies under the AEC. This allows for more technical discussions due to the more focused and less expansive nature of sectoral bodies. In addition, it supports ASEAN’s role as a facilitator and networker, as the complex network of sectoral bodies (see Fig. 2.2. in sect. 2.1.5) lends itself to the coordination of a central, impartial institution. Put together, the more delegated nature of intergovernmental deliberation under the AEC coupled with the technical nature of discussions provides ASEC with greater leeway in making substantial contributions to the policy-making process, as a body possessing neutrality and expertise. While the disaggregation of sectoral bodies generally facilitates the influence of the Secretariat, it also makes coordination more complicated. ASEC staff tasked with supporting multiple sectoral bodies commented that sectoral body disaggregation could sometimes lead to complexity in deliberation and decision making (Interview 37). One such example is the area of intellectual property rights, which is discussed in three subcommittees, requiring considerably more staff within the responsible Secretariat division than comparable areas with less complex sectoral body arrangements. Competition policy, in contrast, has one single sectoral body, which was described as “close-knit and easy to manage” (Interview 37). Given that administrative support to sectoral bodies is the priority activity for ASEC divisions, a greater number of bodies to support generally means that the responsible division retains fewer resources to substantially contribute to policy-making processes. The Secretariat’s role in the Economic Community is reflected in its organizational structure. Within

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the AEC pillar, ASEC is organized into three directorates, Market Integration, Sectoral Development, and Integration Monitoring, subsuming seven, six, and four divisions, respectively (see Fig. 3.1). The technical nature of the policy area becomes apparent in the differentiation of the subordinate divisions, which focus on specific issues such as transport, agriculture, finance integration, and standards and conformance. In terms of its policy-making activities, ASEC’s primary duties include providing support to the various committees and meetings, preparing documentation, recording meetings, and “act[ing] as rapporteurs” (Interview 15), as well as providing analysis, coming up with suggestions and providing options for the member states (Interview 34). Given the high complexity of the issues included under the AEC, the Secretariat is also seen as relevant in the area of knowledge management (Interview 3; Interview 34). Knowledge management in this case is understood as the provision of research and analysis tasks in line with the demands of sectoral bodies. The secretariat staff interviewed all reported activities such as planning for sectoral body meetings, preparing proposals, organizing workshops, and developing toolkits, reports, and studies (Interview 37). The mandate of the divisions in agenda setting, formulation, and implementation remains limited, however, and Secretariat staff are generally subordinate to sectoral body staff, giving them no formal ability to launch their own proposals or conduct their own activities. As later sections of this chapter will show, however, this does not completely preclude Secretariat agency. Most significantly from the Secretariat’s point of view, the member states have allowed for the development of a relatively sophisticated monitoring system and the concurrent setup of a directorate within the Secretariat, called the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate (AIMD). The aim in establishing the unit was to increase the Secretariat’s capacity to assess member state progress on policies over time. This process began in the early 2000s with the establishment of the AEC scorecard (Interview 34). In 2010, the ASEAN Finance Ministers set up the Macroeconomic and Finance Surveillance Office, which became the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Office (AIMO), tasked with managing the AEC 2015 scorecard. In 2016, the office was regularized as an ASEC directorate. Today, the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate is seen as a monitoring entity as well as a “mini think tank” (Interview 12; Interview 54), providing research and analysis to various ASEAN bodies (Fig. 3.2).

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Fig. 3.1 Administrative entities investigated

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ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) Department

ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate

Monitoring, Surveillance & Coordination Division

Analysis & Monitoring on Trade, Industry & Emerging Issues Division

Analysis & Monitoring on Finance & SocioEconomic Division

Statistics Division

Market Integration Directorate

Sectoral Development Directorate

Trade Facilitation Division

Transport Division

Standards & Conformance Division

ICT & Tourism Division

Services & Investment Division

Energy & Minerals Division

Competition, Consumer Protection & IPR Division

Food, Agriculture & Forestry Division

Enterprise & Stakeholders Engagment Division

Science & Technology Division

External Economic Relations Division

IAI & NDG Division

Finance Integration Division

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In addition to its own policy-making agency, the Secretariat frequently plays a role in partner coordination (Interview 3; Interview 34). Partner coordination in this case is understood as the mobilization of funds for activities planned by the sectoral bodies. This mobilization function has been streamlined and facilitated by the blueprints and sectoral work plans, making sectoral body activities more transparent and enabling donor mapping (Interview 3). Despite generally favorable circumstances for Secretariat agency in the AEC, some constraints remain in terms of directorate capacity. The technical and policy advisory role of ASEC is particularly constrained by the high workload that the provision of administrative support to meetings requires (Interview 15). While sectoral bodies frequently ask the Secretariat to prepare short policy papers, divisions have a limited ability to execute such studies (Interview 15; Interview 34). Due to the low number of staff, the AEC divisions within ASEC often lack technical expertise for the specific tasks required by the sectoral bodies in question (Interview 15; Interview 3; Interview 34). Some observers tied this lack

Agenda Setting by Member States

Formulation by Member States

Formulation Support by Secretariat

Stronger Secretariat role emerging

Decision Making by Member States

Implementation by Member States

Monitoring by Member States

Monitoring Support by Secretariat

Stronger Secretariat role emerging

Fig. 3.2 Contribution of the ASEAN Secretariat to the AEC policy process

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of technical expertise to the absence of autonomy on the side of ASEC, suggesting that an important potential institutional power base is missing. The lack of staff and knowledge capacity frequently results in situations where Secretariat divisions are called upon to give advice by their sectoral bodies but are unable to provide it. In cases like this, the divisions resort to the use of external consultants, frequently funded by external actors, to conduct the activities demanded by the member states (Interview 15). A former staff member saw partner support as the path to empower ASEC, with partners providing the resources and expertise necessary to carry out the tasks mandated to the body (Interview 34). But even then, it is clear that ASEC capacity and expertise will always be dwarfed by that of the member states and the external actors (Interview 34). In the following sections, I will shed light on the agency of the Secretariat at distinct stages of the policy-making process, including agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. Decision making is excluded from this overview due to the lack of Secretariat agency at this stage. 3.2.1

Agenda Setting

Agenda setting within the AEC remains largely under the purview of the member states, although there are a number of openings for the Secretariat to exercise agency. Member states articulate their cooperation objectives in two ways: as part of the AEC Blueprint as well as in their sectoral work plans. Sometimes, these plans create policy windows for the Secretariat. ASEC divisions consider the sectoral work plans to be the key documents guiding their work (Interview 37). It is possible to distinguish between three types of Secretariat agency in the realm of agenda setting. (1) Indirect agenda setting through intentional coordination of sectoral body activity; (2) direct provision of impulses in areas not under the purview of specific sectoral bodies; and (3) facilitating the inclusion of external stakeholders in agenda setting. Empowered by its role as a repository of information, facilitator of sectoral body discussions, as well as occasional provider of research and analysis, the Secretariat may sometimes provide inputs to sectoral bodies, for instance, by suggesting activities, specific ways of carrying out activities, and even policy objectives (Interview 34; Interview 68; Interview 76; Interview 77). The divisions’ ability to do so depends on the leeway provided by the sectoral bodies, as well as the quality of staff at their

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disposal (Interview 34). An example of this is the elaboration of the original AEC scorecard (elaborated in Sect. 3.2.4). The second type of agency, direct provision of agenda-setting inputs, is a rare but growing occurrence under the AEC. With the introduction of the AIMD as a kind of internal think tank (see Sect. 3.2.4), the directorate has become empowered to act as a policy incubator in issue areas where sectoral bodies do not yet exist (Interview 12). Through its Emerging Issue Division, AIMD has some staff responsible for monitoring ASEAN’s economic context with the aim of flagging relevant concerns for member state bodies. AIMD appears to have acted in an agenda-setting role in the cases of the ASEAN Good Regulatory Practice Core Principles and the corresponding work plan, as well as the ASEAN Work Plan for Enhancing the Global Value Chain Agenda 2016–2025, which it helped develop (Interview 12). To propose said documents, AIMD liaised directly with the High-Level Task Force on Economic Integration, which reports directly to the ASEAN Economic Ministers’ Meeting, which can adopt action plans (Interview 12). The decisions made there then trickled down to other sectoral bodies within the affected policy areas. This highlights an alternative pathway through which agendas can emerge from within the Secretariat and influence discussions in intergovernmental bodies. This process challenges the mainstream view of the Secretariat as a passive actor and may point the way towards a bigger role for the institution. Still, external actors familiar with the institution were critical of this agendasetting pathway, as they saw the sectoral bodies as the more relevant actors in setting ASEAN’s economic agenda. Finally, ASEC may act as a conduit for external stakeholders in agenda setting, for instance, the private sector, primarily through its newly revamped Stakeholder Engagement Division (Interview 66). As sectoral bodies have varying arrangements in consulting with the private sector and civil society, ASEC has taken up an increasing responsibility to liaise with these actors, setting up a number of forums to receive external agenda-setting input (Interview 66). Regular meetings with business groups in the ASEAN region appear to provide some channels for these stakeholders to suggest relevant issues to the intergovernmental bodies and the Secretariat. Finally, ASEC staff may also affect the agenda by mobilizing external resources in policy areas where an agenda-setting opportunity presents itself (Interview 34), such as economic cooperation monitoring systems, but also non-tariff measures and product standards. The availability of partner support appears to have had some

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effect on the Secretariat’s ability to set the agenda, with ASEC essentially acting as a conduit, ensuring that externally proposed support projects have member state proponents, and acting as a shepherd for external actors to gain institutional buy-in for their projects. 3.2.2

Formulation

Like agenda setting, the formulation of policies is also under the purview of the sectoral bodies in the ASEAN Economic Community. Still, the Secretariat lends various types of support at the formulation stage, usually upon the bodies’ request. ASEAN’s wealth of strategic plans under the AEC has been both a boon as well as a challenge for the Secretariat’s agency in policy formulation. As of 2020, there were 23 unique action plans under the AEC3 and in 2016 alone, the Economic Ministers’ Meeting adopted nine such plans.4 For ASEC, the plans provide direction regarding future activities and the role of the Secretariat, creating policy windows for the organization. ASEC divisions have played varying roles in the formulation of these plans. In the most conservative cases, ASEC staff have lent administrative support to their development, like nudging sectoral bodies to set up activity deadlines or to include more detailed descriptions of planned activities (Interview 3). In some cases, divisions also provided technical support to the formulation of the plans themselves or acted as a conduit for external partner support to formulation, hiring external consultants. For the second generation of action plans following the most recent AEC Blueprint adopted in 2015, the formulation was increasingly supported by AIMD (whose role is discussed in more detail in 3.2.4), which provided templates to all sectoral bodies and carried out training with representatives on designing key performance indicators and M&E frameworks 3 Plus the Action Plans of the Initiative of ASEAN Integration, which technically falls under the AEC, and the Connectivity Master Plan, both of which are being described as including “AEC-related components” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2018a). 4 The AEC 2025 Strategic Action Plan for Trade in Goods, the Strategic Action Plan for Services 2016–2025, the 2016–2025 Investment Work Programme, the ASEAN Standards and Conformance Strategic Plan 2016–2025, the ASEAN Competition Action Plan 2016– 2025, the ASEAN Strategic Action Plan for Consumer Protection 2016–2025, the ASEAN Intellectual Property Rights Action Plan 2016–2025, the ASEAN Community Statistical System Strategic Plan 2016–2025, and the ASEAN Work Plan for Enhancing the Global Value Chains Agenda (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016).

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for their work plans (Interview 12). The Secretariat’s role has not been universally accepted, however. Eight sectoral bodies refused to make their work plans available to ASEC due to concerns over sovereignty, which AIMD countered by suggesting that consolidated strategic plans could be submitted, containing only key action lines (Interview 12). This was described by AIMD as a way to provide external stakeholders and the public with a view of sectoral body activities (Interview 12), which had been fully opaque up until then. Most broadly, it is possible to distinguish between three types of agency exhibited by the ASEAN Secretariat at the formulation stage: (1) facilitating the work of sectoral bodies by acting as an information repository and administrator; (2) contributing to formulation processes through the provision of research or background papers or advisory services to the member states; and (3) involving external stakeholders such as dialogue partners, consultants, or the private sector in formulation activities. At the most basic level, ASEC can support formulation by facilitating intensified engagement between sectoral body representatives. Given that the relevant sectoral body may only meet once or twice per year, expedition of policy formulation depends on ASEC’s agency, i.e. its level of engagement with individual or multiple member states, during intersessional periods (Interview 37). Such inter-sessional work was described as the realm in which ASEC divisions could be most active, by liaising with member state ministries, partners, and by conducting formulation activities of their own, if directed to do so (Interview 68; Interview 76). In the case of the Transport Strategic Plan, for instance, ASEC was tasked with reviewing the past action plan (Interview 31), interviewing the member states, and producing a draft action plan for the period 2016–2025 (Interview 31). The case of infrastructure is particularly interesting because the Senior Transport Officials’ Meeting disaggregates into several working groups. Since formulation takes place at the working group level and working group outputs need to be aggregated for higher-level meetings, ASEC acts as a facilitator between the working groups and the superior body to enable the formulation of a joint document. Such a task can be as simple as aggregating inputs from lower levels. In some cases, ASEC divisions are empowered or allowed enough leeway to suggest priorities within action plans. Depending on the mandate provided to the division and its inclinations, these suggestions may be based on past priorities of the sectoral bodies or go beyond them. In some cases, the wording of ASEAN agreements leaves an opening for the Secretariat to push member

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states towards more ambitious objectives. In the case of competition, for instance, the previous AEC Blueprint mentioned only that ASEAN countries should have a law on competition, which the relevant division used to push for the development of an ASEAN competition law (Interview 3). This is representative of how the relationship between ASEC and the sectoral bodies often functions. If a plan calls for a certain activity, ASEC sometimes possesses leeway to interpret the meaning of that activity and ways of carrying it out, for instance, through workshops, consultancies, or training (Interview 37). There are also ways in which the Secretariat itself can drive policy formulation. Concrete drafting of policies by the Secretariat took place in the cases of the Common Effective Preferential Tariff and the ASEAN Industrial Cooperation Scheme, prior to the emergence of the AFTA (Interview 34). Several divisions confirmed that they provided reports, background papers, or other formulation inputs (Interview 15; Interview 68; Interview 76). Following drafting by ASEC and external consultants, sectoral bodies revise the documents (Interview 31; Interview 37), ensuring that member states have control over the outputs. Still, ASEC, and thereby also external consultants, may have significant leeway over the content of formulated documents, since member states only focus on certain aspects in their revisions. In the case of competition, for instance, discussions mainly circled around the chosen performance indicators and timelines, not the activities per se (Interview 37). An emerging function of ASEC in providing input to policy formulation under the AEC is its involvement in external trade negotiations. ASEC has always played a role in advising member states in negotiations around FTAs, primarily in a legal capacity (Interview 12; Interview 73). This support consists of advising ASEAN member states on past commitments made to external actors, and aspects of intra-ASEAN agreements with repercussions for the negotiations in question. With the emergence of AIMD, ASEC has become more involved in the negotiation process, lending support to ASEAN’s negotiations under the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) (Interview 54). Within the World Trade Organization (WTO), ASEAN does not hold an observership as a regional organization, meaning its member states are represented as individual states. For this reason, the ASEAN Secretariat does not advise its member states on WTO negotiations.

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Finally, the Secretariat acts as a conduit for external actors’ involvement at the formulation stage, to a certain degree including a policy subcommunity, such as the private sector or consultants, in policy-making processes. This ability is based on ASEC’s role as a facilitator of sectoral body meetings. Since the Secretariat is frequently tasked with mobilizing partner support for sectoral body activities, it can seek external funding for additional meetings or activities beyond the regular sectoral body meetings with the aim of building closer connections between representatives and gaining buy-in for policies (Interview 37). Most sectoral bodies meet once or twice per year and not all sectoral bodies have reliable meeting budgets. Additional meetings, workshops, or training sessions are frequently paid for by dialogue partners or other stakeholders (for instance business associations). These meetings are designed for different purposes, sometimes to provide expertise to the representatives or to simply further the agenda beyond the regularly mandated meetings, and sometimes both (Interview 3). Given that ASEC divisions are often responsible for multiple sectoral bodies and manage the transmission of information between them, meetings funded by dialogue partners can also serve the purpose of connecting previously disconnected sectoral bodies if so desired by them and ASEC. For instance, various working groups below the Senior Officials’ Meeting on Agriculture and Forestry were supported through workshops by a German-funded project that provided expert inputs at information exchange meetings in addition to the regular sectoral body meetings (Interview 22), with the aim of having joint discussions on issues related to agriculture, forestry, and sustainability. Both dialogue partners as well as ASEC staff appeared to be interested in enhancing cooperation between usually isolated sectoral bodies. ASEC is also, in principle, tasked with consultations with private sector stakeholders. The AEC Blueprint places considerable importance on private sector engagement and has designated ASEC as a responsible entity for consultation with the ASEAN Business Advisory Council, but this faces considerable issues in practice. There is no standard procedure for consulting with the private sector across sectoral bodies, with some bodies allowing representatives only to sit in during allocated timeslots, while others, such as the Cosmetics Working Group, include the private sector throughout their deliberations (Interview 28; Pente, 2014). Generally, ASEAN’s engagement with civil society and private sector actors has

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been selective, with the organization viewing such stakeholders as “transmission belts” for decisions by the member state executives, rather than considering their input (Abdulrahim et al., 2017; Rüland, 2014, 2016). The Secretariat has taken some measures to improve the engagement of private sector stakeholders in formulation processes, primarily through the establishment of guidelines for external stakeholder engagement with sectoral bodies (Interview 57), but also occasionally through the convention of stakeholder meetings of its own, involving various trade interest groups from across the region as well as dialogue partners (Interview 66). The provision of formulation inputs and expertise by ASEC is tied to the engagement of external actors. Only some ASEC divisions are able to produce significant formulation input in-house (Interview 76), with others lacking the required capacity and therefore relying instead on consultants to formulate draft documents. The hiring of consultants generally coincides with the mobilization of external partner funds (Interview 15; Interview 37). Sometimes, policy impulses are connected to external partner support, with ASEC keeping an overview of which funds and partner portfolios could potentially provide support to particular sectoral bodies’ activities. In the cases of the Competition Action Plan and a study requested by the sectoral body in charge of information and communications technology, ASEC hired consultants to produce the drafts (Interview 37). The use of consultants is not limited to just the sectoral body working groups. High-level documents are also frequently developed using significant consultant input. McKinsey provided a study, which was described by former SG Ong Keng Yong as the “landmark study” paving the way towards the design of the AEC Blueprint (Ong, 2011). The first connectivity master plan ASEAN Secretariat (2010) was drafted with significant input from the Japan-funded Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia, while the second connectivity master plan ASEAN Secretariat (2016) was based on a study by consultancy firm AlphaBeta and paid for by a dialogue partner, Australia (Interview 21). There has been pushback against the use of external consultants by some member states and sectoral bodies, which has led to member states becoming more involved by giving more financial support to the Secretariat (Interview 37). This criticism also gave impetus to the establishment of AIMD, which is being used as an in-house provider of studies that previously were outsourced (Interview 15; Interview 54). In the short run, however,

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these capacity increases were judged as insufficient to enable ASEAN to reduce its reliance on external consultants (Interview 37). Next to monitoring, formulation is the policy stage at which Secretariat agency becomes most apparent. While ASEC’s degree of influence still depends on the relevant sectoral work plan and its interpretation by member states, it is clear that the institution has become empowered to provide more technical expertise and meaningful coordination under the AEC. Another power base for ASEC lies in its function as a conduit for external stakeholders to participate in the formulation process. Given the limited role accorded to and relatively small resources possessed by civil society and the private sector in Southeast Asia, this means that the Secretariat primarily draws from the resources of the dialogue partners. 3.2.3

Implementation

ASEAN faces frequent accusations that while being strong in rhetoric, it is weak in implementation. The ASEAN Economic Community is no exception to this, with implementation progress in the policy area frequently criticized (Jones, 2015), although some assessments have also noted progress (Dosch, 2013). A fundamental and persistent issue is that ASEAN’s economic agreements frequently lack specific implementation commitments. A consultant formerly supporting ASEAN on trade facilitation suggested that the issue with ASEAN’s agreements is that they. […] lack the level of detail required to inform business of the regulations, procedures or levels of service provision ASEAN Member State regulators have committed to […]. […]The AEC Blueprint, for example, frequently fails to spell out what specific measures are required, only that countries will (to quote two examples) ‘modernize customs techniques’ or ‘harmonise standards’. (Martin, 2011, p. 98)

The reasons why details are frequently lacking come down to the dynamics of sectoral body negotiations and resistance to reform within national ministries. Despite the numerous levels of intergovernmental formulation and decision making within ASEAN, and the involvement of high-level government officials, implementation responsibilities remain with the lowest level of the sectoral body hierarchy. The senior officials’ meetings, the ministerial bodies, as well as the AEC Council, are only tasked with adoption, oversight and reporting on implementation

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progress, while working groups should “prepare, implement and report on progress of sectoral work plans, detailed implementation plans, and respective annual priorities to their senior officials” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2018a). Delegating responsibility for policy implementation to these relatively low-ranking bodies and representatives creates obvious difficulties for the transmission of policy impulses from the regional to the national level. In addition, even though policy implementation is understood as being under the purview of technical sectoral bodies, even those bodies are in reality more focused on the endorsement of policies than on their implementation (Interview 22). Even for ASEC staff, it is difficult to judge how much influence sectoral body representatives have back in their national ministries. As a result, implementation is an unpredictable process, depending on the national-level processes that the sectoral body representatives are embedded in. In principle, the AEC Blueprint designated the AEC Council as the body accountable for enforcing compliance with the blueprint (Menon & Melendez, 2017), but ASEAN has not distinguished itself as an organization strong on enforcement, with member states prone to “let it go” following the adoption of regional-level policies (Interview 25). The fact that the implementation of policies is rarely monitored and followed up on is seen as a disincentive for member states to truly engage in implementation (Interview 22). ASEC does not play a significant role in policy implementation under the AEC. Because of the administrative support it provides to sectoral bodies, however, the Secretariat’s ability to mobilize resources from external actors is somewhat important to the national implementation of regional policies. Sectoral bodies have the ability to agree on nationallevel activities either to be carried out by its delegates themselves, or to be supported by external actors. This function has been strengthened through the emergence of the work plans, which make it easier for sectoral bodies and the Secretariat to mobilize external support (Interview 3). ASEC’s role as a mobilizer of external support for work plan activities places the organization in relative proximity to policy implementation, although it would be a stretch to speak of true influence. Some dialogue partners have long attempted to support member states in meeting regional-level commitments, but there appears to be a growing trend towards the support of national-level processes in tandem with regional-level negotiations in the Economic Community (see also sect. 4.2.3).

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3.2.4

Monitoring

Monitoring within the AEC is the policy stage at which the Secretariat’s agency is likely the most wide-ranging. Monitoring has been solidified as a key activity for ASEC in the AEC Blueprint as well as the public image of the organization, with the responsible ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate prominently outlining its mandate, activities, and reports on its website. The overall monitoring of the AEC Blueprint 2025 will be conducted primarily by the ASEAN Secretariat, (specifically the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate), to support the AEC Council, which is the primary body responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with the AEC Blueprint 2025. (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019)

The AEC monitoring directorate is universally lauded as the most advanced policy-making entity within ASEC (Interview 28; Interview 4). Under the AEC, the Secretariat’s agency in policy monitoring is not limited to, but is strongly centered on, AIMD. It should be noted, however, that given AIMD’s dual function as a think tank and a monitoring body, significant capacity is tied up in the provision of research activities as well as support to ASEAN’s external trade negotiations, for instance, for the RCEP (Interview 54). The development of Secretariat monitoring ability in the Economic Community has been a gradual process, beginning with the AEC scorecard, which has been described as an initial, simple, and rudimentary monitoring instrument (Interview 34). Much criticism has been voiced of the scorecard and its perceived failings (Interview 12; Interview 16; Interview 28; Interview 4), but staff involved in its implementation argued that it was set up to suit ASEAN’s degree of economic integration at the time. Drawn from EU examples (Interview 2; Interview 34), its primary issue was that it was only designed to assess ratification and not implementation (Interview 34). The idea was to record compliance through a yes/no scheme, as a yardstick to highlight what member states had committed to (Interview 34). Secretariat staff and representatives of the US, who funded the scorecard design, presumed that member states would not agree to a more extensive monitoring system (Interview 34). Despite its modest ambitions, the introduction of the scorecard system led to a “scrambling” by member state officials to avoid being identified as lagging behind (Interview 34), suggesting that monitoring, even

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if carried out in a rudimentary fashion, does have an impact on implementation rates. Both the initial ASEAN scorecard published in 2010 and the final scorecard published in 2012 highlighted considerable implementation gaps in member states, with the final report showing an average rate of under 70% of measures implemented (ASEAN Secretariat, 2010, 2012). The publication of the scorecard was then abandoned, partly due to member state pressure. Observers suggested that the published scorecard ratings had been rebalanced to make it appear as if countries were compliant (Interview 28). ASEC staff suspected that the information provided by the member states was frequently incorrect, but they were not empowered to correct the information by drawing from other sources (Interview 34). Despite these issues, ASEC staff saw the scorecard as a first foray into monitoring, the beginning of what would later become an actual evaluation of member state compliance. Staff that had been involved in designing the scorecard highlighted that they did believe that ASEC would keep on increasing its monitoring capacities as long as this would happen gradually (Interview 34). Some of the scorecard’s issues informed the design of later monitoring mechanisms, for instance, a move away from solely relying on member state data (Interview 12). Other, more structural, issues persist, however. Most significantly, ASEAN continues to lack mechanisms to follow-up on findings from monitoring systems, such as enforcement and dispute settlement mechanisms (Interview 34). Upon its establishment in 2017, taking lessons from previous forays into monitoring, AIMD attempted to establish a more functional mechanism for monitoring compliance and integration under the Economic Community. The directorate had been empowered by the member states to become more activist, with the AEC Blueprint 2025 providing the following mandate: The monitoring/tracking of the implementation and compliance of strategic measures/action lines agreed upon in the document will be conducted by the ASEAN Secretariat through an enhanced monitoring framework using appropriate approaches and robust methodology. The impact and outcomes of the AEC Blueprint 2025 will be monitored, including with the support of the ASEAN Community Statistical System. (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015, p. 37)

In total, the Secretariat exercises agency in monitoring in five distinct ways: (1) monitoring of ratified agreements; (2) monitoring of

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sectoral work plans under the AEC; (3) impact evaluation of economic integration, drawing from the ASEAN Statistics Division (ASEANstats), member state, and international trade data; (4) internal and public reporting; and (5) additional monitoring conducted through country visits. In compliance monitoring, AIMD’s monitoring mechanism continues the work of the AEC scorecard, requesting instruments of ratification from the member states (Interview 12). To avoid solely relying on member state information, the monitoring directorate aims to complement these data sources with others, monitoring activities within sectoral work plans and monitoring macroeconomic performance more generally. The primary monitoring activity of the Secretariat concerns the monitoring of sectoral work plans. This is carried out by AIMD as well as ASEC’s other divisions under the AEC pillar. AIMD previously supported the drafting of the sectoral work plans to ensure clearer and more transparent timelines of sectoral body commitments. This was done to make monitoring of the work plans easier for the line directorates as well as AIMD itself later on (Interview 12). The emphasis of this monitoring component is on the identification of causes of non-implementation of activities. Member states are encouraged to notify AIMD of issues, so that the division can identify potential remedies, for instance through external support. Despite AIMD’s efforts to regularize monitoring, its capacities remain limited and are insufficient to monitor the entirety of ASEAN’s sectoral bodies. The line divisions under the sectoral development and market integration directorates continue to be responsible for regular followup with their sectoral bodies. AIMD, meanwhile, carries out monitoring primarily for the purpose of reporting to the AEC Council, the ministerial bodies, and the Committee of the Whole, an advisory body that includes all chairs of the sectoral bodies and the senior officials’ meetings (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). This means that AIMD does not regularly liaise with the sectoral bodies. The line directorates, in turn, lack capacity to dedicate to monitoring and are frequently constrained by their relationship to the sectoral bodies, which are unwilling to relinquish power to their Secretariat counterparts. This risks creating gaps, despite efforts to improve monitoring by ASEC in general. Even under the ASEAN Economic Community, some sectoral bodies choose not to report anything at all. Even in cases where sectoral bodies do cooperate, member states often remain in charge of monitoring. Most strategic plans contain timelines to

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be monitored by a lead country. In such cases, ASEC only assists in the process, approaching member states to gather information on whether milestones have been met and conducting simple analyses concerning deadlines met and future steps to be taken (Interview 31). The third of the Secretariat’s monitoring activities, economic impact evaluation, draws on a combination of economic data taken from ASEANstats, member states, and public sources. The objective is to measure the impact of AEC policy implementation to highlight the progress of and benefits resulting from regional integration, both to the member states as well as to external audiences (Interview 12). AIMD was in the process of developing indicators for the impact evaluations in 2018, based on the objectives of the blueprint and the work plans. Since the AEC Blueprint is a very broad document, it remained unclear what could be measured, and if appropriate data would be available from member states (Interview 12). It should be noted that AIMD also appears to strive towards a widening of the stakeholder base for monitoring activities, pursuing the goal of […] enhancing private sector and stakeholders’ engagement in the AEC such as in providing feedback on the impact of the integration efforts, including through surveys and other collaborations with business councils. (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019)

Given the marginal involvement of external stakeholders in all ASEAN policy-making activities, however, it is too early to assess progress on this front. The fourth activity, reporting on progress regarding the ASEAN Economic Community, internally and publicly, is seen as a critical issue, since member states have been uncomfortable disclosing information regarding progress in economic integration in the past (Interview 12). The AEC scorecard, initially conceived as a public document, ceased to be public due to member state discomfort. The monitoring directorate, convinced of the importance of reporting publicly on AEC progress, has launched other public documents focused on the progress of economic integration: the ASEAN Economic Integration Brief and the ASEAN Integration Report (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). Finally, monitoring through country visits is another innovation stemming from AIMD’s revamped monitoring system. The method, which

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has been elaborated in collaboration with the ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the EU (ARISE) project, is based on existing practices of other organizations to provide a template (Interview 12). The challenge for the Secretariat was to design a system that member states would agree with. A pilot study was conducted in Laos in December 2016, following which the 2017 ASEAN Chair, the Philippines, identified the program as a priority (ASEAN Secretariat, 2018b), which gave it additional traction (Interview 12). The visits are supposed to “verify Member States’ compliance […], discuss how regional initiatives affect national policies, and discuss actual implementation of regional initiatives at the country level” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). The rationale behind these visits is to enable the Secretariat to make a judgment as to what the barriers to compliance are and whether non-compliant member states require capacity-building support (Interview 12). Discussions with member states concerning the country visit system centered primarily on the question of “how candid these reports could be,” although member states were less sensitive than ASEC staff expected (Interview 12). It transpired that the visits should not be similar to the WTO trade policy reviews, which were described internally as “a policing thing” (Interview 12). Overall, the monitoring activities of AIMD were described as having “a strong ASEAN Way twist” (Interview 12). The country visits are emphatically not aimed at shaming, punishing, or forcing member states into compliance, the focus instead being on the identification of capacity gaps and needs (Interview 12). Involving the member states closely was seen as ensuring ownership of the process (Interview 12), true to ASEC’s role as the Involved Networker. External partner support looms large in the development of ASEC’s monitoring capacity, with AIMO and AIMD having received significant partner support over the years (Interview 12; Interview 28; Interview 44). While the impetus for the development of AIMD’s monitoring capabilities clearly came from within ASEAN, AIMD has received the lion’s share of dialogue partner support to monitoring. This speaks to the need for technical expertise under the AEC, which ASEAN member states are more willing to request from external actors. The emerging monitoring functions of AIMD appear to leave an opening for external partner involvement. The country visit instrument, for instance, “may also be informed by parallel assessments and studies by an independent authority or external parties” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). The identification of capacity gaps during country visits would also be conducive to

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ASEC’s resource mobilization function, enabling the institution to more clearly identify member state needs which external actors could then lend support to. Given the generally constrained character of the Secretariat, AIMD is seen as providing a major opportunity for dialogue partners to give substantial support to ASEC. It was widely believed in the dialogue partner community that monitoring will empower ASEC if the bureaucracy is enabled to gather transparent data and thereby improve policy feedback loops (Interview 28; Interview 6). To summarize, monitoring is likely the most significant field of ASEC’s agency under the AEC. Given the disaggregated institutional setup of ASEAN and the dearth of follow-up mechanisms to act upon insights drawn from monitoring, the effects of improved monitoring mechanisms within ASEAN cannot yet be fully assessed. Nonetheless, institutional progress and the build-up of analytical capacity within ASEC, particularly through the establishment of the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate, is remarkable. Although monitoring systems are still being elaborated, significant progress at this policy stage is already apparent through the adoption of innovations such as country visits and public reporting on implementation progress.

3.3

Summary

The ASEAN Economic Community is at the cutting edge of ASEAN policy making. Flying under the radar of the APSC-focused scholarlship on ASEAN, the policy area has seen significant progress in policy making since the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2007. Since then, more substantial policies have been adopted, dynamics of discussions within sectoral bodies have been transformed, and the responsible divisions within the ASEAN Secretariat have been empowered. While member states remain firmly in charge of the processes taking place under the AEC, there has been an opening up of policy making, facilitating agency by the Secretariat. ASEC is primarily active at the formulation and monitoring stages. At the margins, an encroachment of ASEC into other parts of the policy cycle may also be observed, such as agenda setting through the Emerging Issues Division under AIMD. ASEAN member states view the economic pillar as an area where technical expertise is needed, which is partly provided through ASEC staff as well as through external institutional support. In recent years, there has been a push for analytical capacity within the

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economic divisions with the aim of empowering ASEC to provide more substance to the process as opposed to acting only as a conduit for external actors. This process, however, is not yet fully borne out, although the establishment of AIMD as an internal think tank is remarkable. As we shall see in chapter 5, the mandate provided to and the agency exercised by the Secretariat under the AEC is more significant than in the case of the Political-Security directorates. In economic policy making, ASEC agency is strongly intertwined with dialogue partner agency, as has been highlighted in the sections on formulation and monitoring. Dialogue partner agency within the AEC will be elaborated in the following chapter (4).

References Abdulrahim, R., Almuttaqi, A. I., & Chandra, A. C. (2017). Non-state Actors’ Engagement with ASEAN: Current State of Play and Way Forward. In A. Baviera & L. Maramis (Eds.), Building ASEAN Community: Political-security and Socio-cultural Reflections (pp. 221–246). Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia. ASEAN Secretariat. (1997). ASEAN Agreement on Customs. ASEAN Secretariat website: https://asean.org/?static_post=asean-agreement-on-customs ASEAN Secretariat. (2008). ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. ASEAN Secretariat. (2010). ASEAN Economic Community Scorecard. ASEAN Secretariat. (2012). ASEAN Economic Community Scorecard: Charting Progress Toward Regional Economic Integration. Phase I (2008–2009) and Phase II (2010–2011). ASEAN Secretariat. (2015). ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025. ASEAN Secretariat. (2016). Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025. (2016). The 48th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ (AEM) Meeting, 3 August 2016— Joint Media Statement. ASEAN Secretariat (2018a). AEC Sectoral Work Plans. http://aecmonitoring. asean.org/swps/ ASEAN Secretariat. (June 2018b). ASEAN Economic Integration Brief (No. 3). ASEAN Secretariat. (2019). AEC Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Framework. http://aecmonitoring.asean.org/m-eframework/ Dosch, J. (2013). The ASEAN Economic Community: The Status of Implementation, Challenges and Bottlenecks. CIMB ASEAN Research Institute. Jones, L. (2015). Explaining the Failure of the ASEAN Economic Community: The Primacy of Domestic Political Economy. The Pacific Review, 29(5), 647– 670. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2015.1022593

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Martin, D. (2011). Overcoming the Obstacles: Increasing ASEAN Relevance in the Promotion of Regional Trade. In Y. Y. Lee (Ed.), ASEAN Matters! Reflecting on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (pp. 97–104). World Scientific. Menon, J., & Melendez, A. C. (2017). Will 2025 be the Final Deadline for the ASEAN Economic Community? Asian Development Bank. Ong, K. Y. (2011). ASEAN Economic Integration: The Strategic Imperative. In Y. Y. Lee (Ed.), ASEAN Matters! Reflecting on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (pp. 87–96). World Scientific. Pente, I. (2014). Lipstick, Innovation, and Preferences: A Developmentalintergovernmental Approach to Ecomomic Policy Transfer from the EU to ASEAN (Dissertation). Freie Universität Berlin. Plummer, M. G., & Chia, S. Y. (2009). Realizing the ASEAN Economic Community: A Comprehensive Assessment. ISEAS Publishing. Rüland, J. (2014). The Limits of Democratizing Interest Representation: ASEAN’s Regional Corporatism and Normative Challenges. European Journal of International Relations, 20(1), 237–261. Rüland, J. (2016). Why (Most) Indonesian Businesses Fear the ASEAN Economic Community: Struggling with Southeast Asia’s Regional Corporatism. Third World Quarterly, 37 (6), 1130–1145.

CHAPTER 4

Policy-Making Support: Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the ASEAN Economic Community

Following the assessment of the ASEAN Secretariat’s agency in the Economic Community, this chapter addresses agency by ASEAN’s dialogue partners. Again, the policy cycle is applied to investigate agency at distinctive stages of the policy-making process, including agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. This permits the identification of actions by dialogue partners as well as their varied interactions with member states and the ASEAN Secretariat. As dialogue partner are not involved in ASEAN’s decision-making processes, this stage is excluded from the analysis. In line with the institutional impetus in the AEC, dialogue partners exhibit significant agency at the formulation and monitoring stages. As a result of ASEAN’s member states’ preponderance in the policy-making process, dialogue partner support focuses on ASEAN’s intergovernmental bodies rather than the ASEAN Secretariat. This type of support can be labelled intergovernmental policy-making support. Still, some support to the Secretariat in policy monitoring is also apparent. This chapter is structured as follows. First, an overview of ASEAN’s external relations in the AEC is provided (Sect. 4.1). Next, dialogue partner agency in the AEC is outlined in general terms (Sect. 4.2) followed by specific insights at the stages of agenda setting (Sect. 4.2.1), formulation (Sect. 4.2.2), implementation (Sect. 4.2.3), and monitoring (Sect. 4.2.4). The chapter concludes with a summary (Sect. 4.3). © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_4

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4.1 External Relations and Policy Making in the AEC Given the policy-making impetus present in the ASEAN Economic Community as well as the relatively permissive environment created by member states for agency by the Secretariat and dialogue partners, the AEC is predictably an area where external actors seek to exercise agency and where much of their agency is permitted. As in the APSC, external partners are acutely aware that ASEAN member states desire external resources to fund activities in the AEC. Many observers see the externalization of costs of regional governance to dialogue partners as a core organizational feature of ASEAN (Interview 46). Different numbers circulate in the Jakarta donor community on the level of external funds provided for regional-level activities. Estimates range from $26 million (Nair, 2015) to about $100 million per year in funds provided for ASEAN projects (Interview 46) across the three pillars. Given the relative development of many ASEAN member states, it may appear somewhat puzzling that the institution continues to seek external funds for core activities. In the external actor community, different explanations are given regarding ASEAN’s continued reliance on external funds. Some explain it as a matter of path dependency, with ASEAN having become accustomed to large amounts of external support (Interview 33; Interview 46). Looking at the ASEAN Economic Community, it appears as if the involvement of different dialogue partners is also related to a type of balancing or hedging (Kuik, 2008) with the intention of ensuring even-handedness in regulatory exchange and influence to ensure that ASEAN does not become too dependent on individual partnerships. What then is the external environment that ASEAN finds itself in in the context of the AEC, or, in other words, what dialogue partnerships are relevant to the organization? Overall, the AEC sees the mobilization of significantly higher amounts of dialogue partner funds than the APSC. Still, the ASCC has received more than double the funding of the AEC until 2013, although this may change in the future. Canada officially does not provide any funds to the AEC. China, the ROK, New Zealand, Russia, and India provide very low amounts. The bulk of support is provided by Australia (US$91 million), the EU (US$30 million), Germany (US$15 million), Japan (US$23 million), and the US (US$46 million) as the key players in terms of external to the AEC (see Table 2.1 in Sect. 2.2.1). Table 4.1 provides an overview of most recent

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institutional support projects funded by the largest providers of support to ASEAN under the AEC. Table 4.1 Overview of external funds provided to the AEC after 2008 (selection) External actor

Project name

Time period

Funding amount

Policy area targeted

Germany

Standards in the South-East Asian food trade (SAFT)

2015–2019

e3 million

Competition Policy and Law in ASEAN (CPL)

2015–2018

e4.5 million

Capacity Building for the ASEAN Secretariat

2008–2016

e11 million

ASEAN Secretariat Post 2015—Institutional Strengthening & Capacity Development

2016–2019

e1.9 million

ASEC 2025—Strengthening of the ASEAN Secretariat Capacities and the Integration Process within the Framework of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 ASEAN-German Programme on Response to Climate Change: Agriculture, Forestry and Related Sectors (GAP-CC)

2018–2021

e2.7 million

Trade Facilitation, Public Sector Reform Trade Facilitation, Public Sector Reform ASEC Capacity Building ASEC Capacity Building, Small and Medium Enterprisesa ASEC Capacity Buildinga

2013–2018

e3 million

Agriculture, Forestry, Climatea

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) External actor

Project name

Time period

Funding amount

Policy area targeted

United States

ASEAN Development Vision to Advance National Cooperation and Economic Integration (ADVANCE) ASEAN Connectivity Through Trade and Investment (ACTI) Inclusive Growth in ASEAN through Innovation, Trade, and E-Commerce (IGNITE) ASEAN-EU Programme for Regional Integration Support (APRIS) Phase I and II EU-ASEAN Statistical Capacity Building Programme

2007–2013

$55 million

Trade Facilitation

2013–2018

$21 million

Trade Facilitation

2018–2023

$12 million

2003–2010

e10 million

2009–2012

e6 million

ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the European Union (ARISE) ARISE+

2012–2016

e22 million

Trade Facilitation, Small and Medium Enterprises Trade Facilitation, ASEC Capacity Building Statistics, Monitoring, ASEC Capacity Building Trade Facilitation

2017–2022

e41 million (+e50 million for 8 national components)

Capacity Building Project for Monitoring Integration Progress and Statistics (COMPASS)

2014–2018

e7.5 million

European Union

Trade Facilitation, Statistics, Monitoring, ASEC Capacity Building Statistics, Monitoring, ASEC Capacity Building

(continued)

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Table 4.1 (continued) External actor

Project name

Time period

Funding amount

Australia

ASEAN-Australian Development Cooperation Program Phase II

2008–2019

Australia/New Zealand

ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Area Economic Cooperation Support Programme Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund

2010–2018

AU$57 million Tourism, Connectivity, Consumer Protection, Agriculture, Initiative for ASEAN Integration AU$26.5 Trade million Facilitation

Japan

2006–2019

$680 million (only part used under AEC pillar)

Policy area targeted

Small and Medium Enterprises, Trade Facilitationa

a Includes projects under other pillars

The different dialogue partners provide support to complementary policy areas under the AEC. Australia is mainly known for its demandbased support through its trust fund, for instance, in trade facilitation and connectivity. The EU, Germany, and the US provide support to various sectoral bodies, either through integrated consultants, direct funding to activities, or the organization of joint events, for instance, in product standards, competition policy, or e-commerce. Japan’s most important institutional contribution to ASEAN is likely the Economic Research Institute for East Asia and ASEAN, which acts as a think tank for ASEAN (Interview 54) and provides regular technical studies, for instance a study on the ASEAN Vision 2040 (The Bangkok Post, 2019). Japan funded the research institute with a contribution of US$100 million over 10 years (AANZFTA Economic Co-operation Support Programme, 2009), a substantial commitment which appears to be ongoing. Certain partners such as China and Japan also frequently provide ad hoc support through their ministries, which is difficult to account for. Still, this study does capture most of the support that runs to the sectoral bodies and the Secretariat. Obviously, significantly larger amounts of support

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are provided to on AEC-related issues at the member state level. This chapter, however, only captures support that implicates regional-level intergovernmental bodies or institutions. As noted in Sect. 2.2.2, the ASEAN member states have set up a number of institutional bodies and mechanisms to ensure that support is provided in line with their preferences. Under the AEC, that preference appears to be complementarity and even-handedness across dialogue partners. The majority of dialogue partner support in the AEC is in line with sectoral work plans and the AEC Blueprint. Dialogue partners were seen as having “carved up” ASEAN over time, engaging in different policy areas (Interview 21; Interview 6). This may be termed partner segmentation, with both the dialogue partners as well as the member states having made conscious efforts to divide partner engagement into different policy areas (Interview 67). This is in contrast to the APSC, where more emphasis is placed on overlap and competition. There is evidence that ASEC supports such hedging or partner segmentation activities, mobilizing and managing support in the AEC with a view towards overlaps and complementarity (Interview 25; Interview 9). Attaining partner complementarity appears to be simpler under the AEC, where external actors have identifiable strengths (Interview 14; Interview 15) and issues can be disaggregated technically to establish a division of labor between different support projects. There are clear-cut examples of partner segmentation in the AEC, for instance, in competition, where Germany has provided knowledge products, and Australia and Japan have supported exchanges with practitioners (Interview 3). In the area of standards, different external actors are involved in different product categories, Japan in the case of automotive certification, Germany in the case of food standards, and the EU in the case of medical device standards (Interview 67). Another example is regional cooperation in information and communications technology, where support has been sought from the EU for telecom spectrum management, while the US and Japan are supporting cybersecurity (Interview 15). Cases such as this are the rule under the AEC, with partner segmentation being the underlying ordering principle of external institutional support. This segmentation functions not only within but also across policy areas. East Asian dialogue partners such as China, Japan, and South Korea are more frequently approached in relation to hard policy areas such as infrastructure, while Western partners are more frequently involved in softer

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policy areas such as trade facilitation (Interview 14; Interview 6). Particularly in the AEC, relations between ASEAN and particular partners are long-standing. In areas such as standards, trade facilitation, and logistics, external support is path-dependent and the entry of new external actors is rare (Interview 67). Some external actors also reported limits on engagement with sectoral bodies due to budgetary constraints, as the provision of technical expertise to meetings is costly (Interview 6). Despite the member states’ stranglehold on coordinating external support, the dialogue partners were not fully satisfied with the coordination processes, which were seen as lacking transparency (Interview 2). Still, most dialogue partners have been involved with ASEAN for a long time and hence understand the key players in their areas of interest. Despite ASEAN’s established coordination systems, dialogue partners and implementers frequently organized their own meetings to discuss their current ASEAN portfolios and identify priorities and potential synergies (Interview 7). External actors remarked on the positive effects of these meetings to ensure complementarity within the AEC, for instance, in competition (Interview 3), infrastructure (Interview 6), or automotive certification (Interview 67). Some observers suggested, however, that there are limits to partner coordination due to conflicting partner interests and the sizes of their portfolios, with some smaller-scale partners marginalized by the larger ones (Interview 14; Interview 40; Interview 7). The same structural features supporting larger Secretariat agency in the AEC are also supportive of the involvement of dialogue partners. The disaggregated nature of the sectoral bodies, outlined in Sect. 2.1.5, allows for more subsidiarity across the policy cycle and frequently precludes politicized discussions, different from the top-heavy APSC. The technical nature of discussions under the AEC as well as the need for research and analysis also lends itself naturally to the provision of external expertise. The large number of issues discussed in disparate bodies draws upon a large amount of financial, ideational, and staff resources, not all of which can be provided by ASEAN alone. Another factor that contributes to dialogue partner agency in the AEC is the relative specificity of sectoral work plans in the policy area, which make it easier for member states, the Secretariat, as well as for dialogue partners to gauge the potential for substantial cooperation and support.

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4.2 Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the AEC Following this overview of ASEAN’s dialogue partner environment in the AEC, I will briefly outline some characteristics of dialogue partner agency in the policy area, before moving on to specific stages of the policy cycle. Most of the external partner support in the AEC is focused on the intergovernmental bodies, although some dialogue partner support to the Secretariat is also apparent. Still, ASEC primarily acts as a conduit for external partner support, used as a mechanism to match sectoral body needs and external support provision, or vice versa. Due to the strong involvement of dialogue partners with member state representatives through the sectoral bodies and at the national level rather than regional institutions, this type of agency can be labelled intergovernmental policy-making support. Figure 4.1 illustrates the roles of the different actors involved in this type of institutional support. The support provided to ASEAN in the AEC mirrors the intergovernmental structure of the organization. It is in line with member state choices regarding agency within ASEAN and largely supportive of ASEAN’s extant intergovernmental norms and policy processes. From the dialogue partners’ vantage point, this type of institutional support carries with it various benefits. Due to the close engagement

ASEAN Secretariat

te

Co

ina

nt ro

l

d or

Co

Provide Resources Member States

Dialogue Partners Coordinate

Fig. 4.1 Character of institutional support to ASEAN

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with member states, external actors have the ability to influence policy making at the earliest stages (Interview 6), have greater ease of coordinating regional-level activities with national-level support due to the overlap of sectoral bodies and national ministries (Interview 14; Interview 4), and have the opportunity to engage all ASEAN member states at once without intermediaries (Interview 19; Interview 33). External actors leverage the advantages of this type of institutional support by complementing regional projects that focus on policy formulation with national-level activities supporting implementation (Interview 14; Interview 3; Interview 4; Interview 46). Another benefit to external actors is that projects can be rapidly adapted to a changing environment, given that interaction occurs directly with member states. Projects have frequently been adapted to accommodate changing circumstances, in accordance with changing ASEAN member state preferences (Interview 28). External support to ASEAN in the AEC is notable for its strong reliance on intergovernmental formats such as summits and workshops at different levels of cooperation. While some actors emphasize that their objective is supporting and strengthening ASEC as much as possible (Interview 44; Interview 7), the majority view the sectoral bodies as their key counterparts within ASEAN (Interview 22; Interview 28; Interview 3; Interview 46). Depending on the modalities of the institutional support, dialogue partners engage sectoral bodies punctually by supporting distinctive activities contained in work plans to propel work on specific issues or to put new ones on the agenda. Inputs by dialogue partners take the shape of meetings, workshops, expert presentations, and studies. Some portfolio-based support projects, such as those by the US, the EU, and Germany, support single or multiple working groups over periods of time, internalizing significant costs of their activities during this period (Interview 46; Interview 6). Very few projects target several sectoral bodies at once, for instance, the US ACTI/IGNITE (AEC) and the EU ARISE/ARISE+ (AEC) and READI/E-READI (multi-pillar) projects. Some projects, such as the German Standards in Food Trade and Competition projects under the AEC, target individual sectoral bodies (Interview 22; Interview 3). Some projects have the explicit objective of connecting separate sectoral bodies. Given the frequent complexity of issues under the AEC, dialogue partners often find it important to break with ASEAN’s silo structure to enable discussions on common issues across diverse groups of bureaucrats. Still, such activities are only carried

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out by some actors, such as the EU and the US, due to the high costs associated with engaging multiple sectoral bodies at once. Through close engagement with member states within the sectoral bodies, external actors contribute primarily to the formulation of policies. Through their involvement with sectoral bodies over time, they may also have an impact on agenda setting by influencing deliberations within sectoral bodies. Not all actors are interested in pursuing aggressive agenda-setting programs, with many structuring their support along the lines of existing strategic plans to ensure institutional ownership of the activities conducted, for instance Australia (Interview 21). Other actors, such as the US and the EU, are more interested in putting new issues on sectoral bodies’ agendas (Interview 19; Interview 5). Despite some dialogue partners’ attempts to influence ASEAN, interviewees generally emphasized that member states remain in charge of determining dialogue partner support in the AEC (Interview 46; Interview 7; Interview 9). This public stance makes sense as dialogue partners likely want to be seen as supporting the organization on its own terms. It does in fact appear as if partner support has become more ASEAN-centric over time. Following decision making by the sectoral bodies, it is the national secretariats and national-level ministries and agencies that are formally tasked with implementation (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017). In succession, external actors also support implementation of ASEAN-level activities in the member states. Finally, support at the monitoring stage has in some cases involved strengthening ASEC capacity, representing the primary policy stage at which external institutional support clearly strengthens the regional bureaucracy. Table 4.2 highlights some activities of the EU-funded ARISE project, which works to support policy formulation in the area of trade facilitation. Given that ARISE also has an ASEC capacity-building component, this is in fact a project that is not fully focused on sectoral body activities and as such slightly atypical. Still, the activities listed below all target sectoral bodies and are thereby representative for most intergovernmental policy-making support. In addition, ARISE is notable for its national-level follow-up, which can be seen in its support to national workshops aiming to contribute to the implementation of regionally formulated policies. As such, it is representative of many different types of dialogue partner agency in the AEC.

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Table 4.2 Activities supported by the ARISE project (2012–2017) (selection) Date

Activity supported

Location

6.10.2014

Transport Facilitation Working Group Meeting Customs Procedure and Trade Facilitation Working Group Meeting Sub-Working Group on the ASEAN Customs Transit System Meeting National ASEAN Solutions for Investments, Services and Trade (ASSIST) Workshop ASEAN Customs Transit System (ACTS) Procedural Training Integrated Border Management Workshop for the Implementation of the Pilot ACTS at Designated Frontier Post Crossings Workshop on the Revision of the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Mutual Recognition Arrangements Workshop on the Development of ASEAN Food Control Requirements Workshop for Laos on Guidelines on Standards, Technical Regulation and Conformity Assessment Procedures Workshop on Developing a Harmonized Regulatory Regime for the ASEAN Automotive Sector ACTS Private Sector Training Programme in Preparation for the Parallel Run

Medan, Indonesia

12.10.2014 3.11.2014 9.6.2016–10.6.2016

9.6.2016–10.6.2016 3.8.2016–4.8.2016

5.10.2016–6.10.2016

7.11.2016–8.11.2016

5.10.2016–6.10.2016

13.12.2016

10.1.2017–12.1.2017

Chiang Mai, Thailand Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Nay Pyi Taw, Myanmar

Bangkok, Thailand Johor Baru, Malaysia

Jakarta, Indonesia

Jakarta, Indonesia

Vientiane, Laos

Jakarta, Indonesia

Bangkok, Thailand

While intergovernmental policy-making support is the prevailing type of institutional support provided to ASEAN, there are some exceptions to the rule. Some projects do in fact build up capacity within the ASEAN Secretariat, for instance, in the case of the AIMD (Interview 44). This highlights that institutional support adapts to changing institutional circumstances and may boost institutional reform in cases where it is possible and in line with member state preferences. Some dialogue partners see the possibility of empowering ASEC through the use of the monitoring directorates, supporting ASEAN’s quest for more

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analytical capacity (Interview 28; Interview 6). There appears to be a particular opening for this kind of support under the AEC. Still, member states publicly highlighted that the buildup of capacity should be a process directed by ASEAN, with a view towards enabling ASEC to do more of the things that are currently being outsourced to external stakeholders. As noted previously, further development of Secretariat capacity is ultimately aimed at reducing reliance on external actors, not on increasing it. The only actors significantly engaged in building ASEC’s capacity are the EU through the ARISE and COMPASS projects and Germany through multiple projects. Germany sees its relationship to ASEC as unique and is therefore engaged in sensitive areas such as organizational management reforms and institutional capacity building (Interview 3; Interview 7; Interview 9). ARISE concept documents have identified the staff capacity issues of ASEC as a major hindrance to policy-making and project implementation (ARISE, 2013b). Correspondingly, ARISE supported the hiring of 10 staff members for the ASEAN Secretariat, particularly within the Program Coordination and Project Management Division, but also AEC line divisions as well as the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Office and later AIMD (Interview 44). Under ARISE+, staff were also to be hired under the Legal Services and Agreements Division (Interview 44). Member states remain skeptical of projects targeting ASEC, suggesting that this is not the purpose of the institution (Interview 56). In the following, the strategies and impacts of external support at the stages of agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring will be highlighted to draw a clearer picture of the character of dialogue partner agency in the case of the AEC. 4.2.1

Agenda Setting

External support to ASEAN in the AEC is notable for support provided at the earliest stages of the policy cycle. All projects listed in Table 4.1 conduct agenda setting in sectoral bodies to a certain degree. Most broadly, agenda-setting support by external actors can be classified in two varieties: (1) agenda setting for single or multiple sectoral bodies, through the convention of additional meetings and the provision of policy input; and (2) involving track II stakeholders in the agenda-setting process. The convention of cross-sectoral meetings by dialogue partners also appears to

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be a way to support agenda setting in the AEC. Since ASEAN already set up cross-sectoral coordination groups in the AEC, this type of agency is not considered distinctive to dialogue partners, as it is in the case of the APSC (see Sect. 6.2.1). Most external support targets single sectoral bodies with the aim of propelling a particular agenda forward. External actors have provided agenda-setting impetus through their involvement with sectoral bodies by providing information, reports, and presentations on emerging issues (Interview 21), or reference documents on potential policies, such as competition policy, product standards, trade facilitation systems, and others (Interview 14; Interview 67). The impact of such institutional support is opaque, however, because partners are only permitted to join sectoral body discussions within specified time slots. Because of this, external actors have only limited insight into sectoral bodies’ deliberations following their input and limited ability to follow-up on the sectoral bodies’ use of the external inputs (Interview 22). In some cases, input provided later emerges on work plans, but this is unpredictable (Interview 3). Even in the rare cases where external actors are allowed to participate in full meetings, advancing agendas through participation is seen as difficult due to the formalized nature of meetings and the lack of controversial discussions (Interview 22). Dialogue partners can also support sectoral bodies through the funding of additional meetings or expert input, enabling them to speed up their activities. This was done in the case of the product standard sectoral groups, which saw significant support from Germany at the time this study was conducted. Institutional support can also reinvigorate sectoral bodies that have become moribund. The ARISE project supported a largely defunct body, the ASEAN Trade Facilitation Joint Coordinating Committee, which includes a variety of sectoral bodies related to trade facilitation, with the aim of revamping cross-sectoral discussions on the subject (Interview 28). The second way in which external actors attempt to get involved at the agenda-setting stage in the AEC is through the inclusion of civil society and private sector stakeholders in policy-making processes. Both US as well as EU projects dedicate a percentage of their funds to the support of activities in collaboration with civil society. Given the noted constraints of ASEAN’s engagement with civil society (Rüland, 2012), creating opportunities for such actors to engage with Southeast Asian government officials is seen as a crucial activity (Interview 14; Interview 6). In the case of the US, one such forum is the Summer Institute, to

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which ASEAN civil society organizations focused on transnational issues are invited. At one such event, a track 1.5 dialogue focusing on the human rights dimensions of trade took place between AEC sectoral bodies and non-governmental organizations (Interview 6). Such forums also allow the US to address issues that could not be addressed in other forums. The US held a series of meetings on digital economy with Southeast Asian small and medium enterprises and other stakeholders (US Mission to ASEAN, 2018) with the aim of providing the participants with a platform to engage with US corporations, as well as to pressure the governments for more business-friendly legislation (Interview 19). Sometimes, such dialogues are held with the aim of facilitating access for private sector actors from the dialogue partner country. The forums organized between the US and the Telecommunications Ministers’ Meeting prominently involved American companies, the aim being to foster their engagement in regional efforts in cybersecurity (US-ASEAN Business Council, 2018). Given that the majority of dialogue partners have active business councils concerned with ASEAN markets, they are sometimes involved in track II dialogues under the AEC pillar (Interview 66). 4.2.2

Formulation

The majority of dialogue partner agency in the AEC occurs at the formulation stage through support for sectoral body work plan activities or as a follow-up to previously provided agenda-setting impulses. It is difficult to cleanly distinguish institutional support at the agendasetting and formulation stages because they employ the same means, the convention of meetings, and the provision of inputs and studies. What distinguishes agency at this stage from that of agenda setting is that it tends to attach to previously existing ASEAN agendas such as sectoral work plans or the AEC Blueprint. Furthermore, support at this stage is usually actively sought by ASEAN member states or the Secretariat. In contrast, agenda-setting impulses usually result from dialogue partner interests or preferences. The Secretariat plays a role in this process as a mobilizer of external support for formulation activities based on needs or requests by the ASEAN sectoral bodies. Prior to the emergence of the work plans, sectoral bodies frequently used ASEC to independently identify external support for relevant activities (Interview 16). Following the introduction of the CPR and the constraining of Secretariat agency, sectoral bodies moved towards the creation of work plans that spell out

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more specific activities to be supported by dialogue partners, asserting member state dominance. Propelling existing policy priorities under the AEC is widely judged to be easy. As long as an issue is covered by an existing ASEAN sectoral body and external support is possible within the scope of the sectoral work plan in question, it is possible to fund planned activities, unless there is strong opposition from a key ASEAN player or a conflict of interest with another dialogue partner (Interview 6). Sectoral bodies tend to have one to two meetings per year funded out of their member states’ budgets. Any sectoral body activity beyond these regularly scheduled meetings is funded through external support (Interview 22; Interview 3). This often leads to significant meeting proliferation in areas where many partners are engaged, although this issue is more widespread in the APSC than in the AEC, where support is more segmented and consistent over time. In competition policy, for instance, Germany, Japan, and Australia have coordinated their support with the aim of addressing differing features of policy making, ensuring the complementarity of support (Interview 3). Dialogue partners have three ways of supporting policy formulation within the sectoral bodies: (1) providing input during regularly scheduled sectoral body meetings; (2) providing additional expertise through reference documents, workshops, or the convention of other meetings or activities; and (3) propelling the formulation process by supporting national-level activities. At the most basic level, external actors can support the activities of sectoral bodies through inputs provided during regularly scheduled sectoral body meetings. Dialogue partners engaged with sectoral bodies for long periods of time reported being asked to provide certain inputs to the sectoral bodies (Interview 2; Interview 22; Interview 28; Interview 38). Dialogue partners described their engagement with sectoral bodies during sectoral body meetings as extremely formalized, usually consisting of a slot to give a presentation, distribute a study, or suggest additional activities, following which they are ushered out of the room (Interview 14; Interview 22; Interview 3). Many partners lamented the “old-school” character of the meetings, giving them only a narrow timeframe in which to present their work and leaving them with uncertainty over how their input will be used (Interview 22; Interview 38). External actors who were offered the opportunity to attend full meetings attempted to do so but decided against it due to the perceived lack of room for discussion and the general tone of the meetings (Interview 22).

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Given that most sectoral bodies meet only once or twice a year, there frequently is a need to convene additional meetings to achieve progress in policy formulation in sectoral bodies in the AEC. Dialogue partners take this opportunity to schedule a variety of meetings involving sectoral bodies in differing formats, including additional dialogues, workshops, trainings, and study visits. This is the second type of agency exhibited by dialogue partners at the formulation stage. In the case of the Competition Working Group, for instance, the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) conducted meetings where World Bank experts provided input to the working group (Interview 3). Dialogue partners also regularly support the drafting of documents. Within certain policy areas of the AEC, where clear international best practices exist, external actors sometimes fund the wholesale drafting of strategic documents. Australia has hired consultants to draft the Connectivity and the IAI strategic plans (Interview 21; Interview 49), and Germany supported the drafting of the Competition Action Plan (Interview 14). Beyond these plans, partners also contribute to the drafting of manuals, toolkits, guidelines, and other reference documents used to train member state officials (Interview 22; Interview 3), as well as sectoral studies, collections of international best practices, and reports on emerging policy issues (Australian Aid, 2019; Interview 19; Interview 22; Interview 3). While external actors refer to international best practices as the foundation of these documents (Interview 14; Interview 3), national interests and experience likely play into them as well. The fact that cooperation is so segmented under the AEC, however, constrains the ability of dialogue partners to steer the activities of a given body through their formulation support. Connectivity, trade facilitation, standards, and competition are all areas in which external actors are involved in a highly specialized fashion, only focusing on a narrow set of issues under the sectoral bodies’ purview. Substantial progress through this type of support is considered slow and impact diffuse, although partners argued that changes could be seen after long periods of time (Interview 22; Interview 3). US representatives claimed great success in cases where they had built a close relationship with sectoral bodies and attached to existing work plan priorities (Interview 6). Training of sectoral body representatives, if a clear need is apparent and a member state request is made, is seen as a valuable activity. Still, sectoral bodies sometimes change their membership, leading to issues of institutional memory and requiring that the same inputs be provided again at a later

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date (Interview 3; Interview 37; Interview 38). Because inputs to sectoral bodies are usually provided through external consultants or research institutes, this contribution to policy making also represents an inclusion of a policy sub-community in formulation processes. There are similarities between this strategy and the agency displayed by the ASEAN Secretariat in policy formulation in the AEC. The third distinctive strategy to externally support formulation is to engage regional bodies and individual member states simultaneously. One dialogue partner offered the analogy of a tanker and a speedboat to explain the relationship between national and regional formulation processes. If the sectoral body in question is the tanker, dialogue partners need to try everything to make sure that it moves in the right direction. At the same time, however, it is necessary to have speedboats— individual ASEAN member states—that move more quickly, highlighting that it is actually worth going in a certain direction (Interview 14). These states may then act as champions within the sectoral body. ASEAN states that are slower to act may in turn be pushed by the regional debate and influenced through this channel (Interview 19). While the analogy is unique, many external actors have described similar dynamics of nested engagement with sectoral bodies and ASEAN member states. Such tactics are employed by Australia, the EU, Germany, and the US. Germany has employed the strategy in the area of competition policy, where individual member states such as Singapore and Indonesia have moved forward more progressively. More advanced ASEAN states then steered the conversation in the sectoral bodies (Interview 3). A similar strategy has been employed in the German food standards project, where individual member states have competed to carry out national formulation processes in a quest to obtain more project funding for their individual activities. The US pursued a similar dynamic in cybersecurity, where Singapore emerged as an ally to push regional formulation processes forward (Interview 19). 4.2.3

Implementation

Given the progress made within the AEC on policy implementation, it is no wonder that dialogue partners have also turned their attention towards the sector. Areas where a significant degree of implementation has been achieved, like competition, intellectual property rights, trade facilitation, and standards, all receive significant dialogue partner support.

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While regional-level projects must undergo ASEAN’s partner management mechanisms, national components frequently do not. In some cases, external actors, therefore, carry out multi-country projects without coordinating with ASEAN bodies such as the CPR. Such provision of bilateral support to policy implementation is a potential challenge for ASEAN. Dialogue partners may design such projects when they fail to receive CPR approval or if they want to avoid undergoing ASEAN’s complicated approval procedures in the first place. Implementation support is never provided through the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEC plays no role in either facilitating or managing this type of support. Only in the areas of Connectivity and IAI does ASEC play a role in mobilizing funds for implementation. There are two types of institutional support to policy implementation provided by dialogue partners: (1) support at the national level for the implementation of regional-level policies; and (2) direct implementation of technical projects at the regional and national levels. Dialogue partners primarily support implementation through followup with national stakeholders involved in the sectoral bodies. Generally, dialogue partners supporting a given sectoral body have a view of the representatives’ needs within their national contexts. This knowledge can be leveraged to design national follow-up projects and act upon commitments made at the regional level. Ultimately, this is the advantage that policy-making intergovernmental support provides to the dialogue partners. In extreme cases, this type of support can take the shape of assistance in domestic policy formulation and implementation, for instance, in the case of competition policy (Interview 14). In less extreme cases, external actors may support national training, workshops, and other types of capacity-development measures aimed at supporting the policy change agreed upon at the regional level, for instance, in standards, forestry and climate change, and trade facilitation (Interview 2; Interview 22). Australia, the EU, Germany, and the US all make use of this regionalnational alignment in their development cooperation portfolios, although in different policy sub-fields. Germany makes use of this strategy in its CPL, SAFT, and GAP-CC projects (Interview 14; Interview 22; Interview 3). The US’s AEC projects also provide support to national-level stakeholders. The EU’s AEC projects from APRIS I and II through ARISE and ARISE+ all prominently supported national-level implementation in line with regional-level priorities (Interview 46). In the case of the German Competition and Law and Standards in Food Trade

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projects, member state implementation needs were directly derived from discussions within the relevant sectoral bodies (Interview 14; Interview 22; Interview 3). Following the tanker and speedboat analogy of the formulation stage, engaging the regional and national levels at the implementation stage can yield advantages in terms of speed of implementation progress. Regional-level projects with national-level budgets, such as ARISE+, SAFT, CPL, and GAP-CC are all able to incentivize member states by providing more national-level funds to sectoral body representatives attaining objectives more quickly, and withdrawing national-level funds from representatives reluctant to move on with their commitments (Interview 22). Two dialogue partner representatives described creating a competitive environment between member states within sectoral bodies by suggesting that project funds will be moved to more advanced ASEAN countries if the reluctant states do not move towards implementation (Interview 22). This usually leads member states to expedite national processes as they do not want to miss out on external funds (Interview 22). While this strategy of external support to ASEAN is remarkable, illustrating the policy-making character of intergovernmental policy-making support, it should also raise some eyebrows. The involvement of external actors in bridging the policy implementation gap is achieved by leveraging the structures of the dialogue partners in the member states, i.e., their development agencies and diplomatic representations (Zimpel, 2017). While many such projects pursue an ASEAN-helps-ASEAN approach, cultivating networks between member states, such projects nonetheless risk creating competing mechanisms of implementation and may therefore challenge ASEAN’s centrality. Given the weakness of ASEAN’s own implementation mechanisms and the fledgling nature of the national secretariats, this is a real concern. Some support projects are directly involved in implementation by design, the second type of external support to implementation. The key difference from the previous type of implementation support is that such support has as its deliverables the national implementation of region-wide mechanisms, frequently technical systems. The most significant examples of this can be found in the EU-funded ARISE project, which is supporting the ASEAN Solutions for Investments, Services, and Trade (ASSIST), the ASEAN Trade Repository (ATR), as well as the ASEAN Customs Transit System, all trade facilitation and logistics systems involving member states. Another project in this vein is the ASEAN Single Window (ASW) supported by the US. ASSIST is essentially

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a mechanism to troubleshoot problems encountered by private sector companies with regard to cross-border trade, services, and investments, allowing companies to file complaints about trade barriers encountered (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019d). Based on the EU SOLVIT system, ASSIST is supposed to support the implementation of the ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement, particularly its content regarding trade and investment issues (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019d). ACTS, meanwhile, is a technical system enabling the transport of goods between ASEAN states without intermediate unloading and with minimal border procedures (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019a). The project, built upon the ASEAN Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Goods in Transit, is being implemented in three pilot countries—Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia—with the intention of rolling out the project across all member states at a later stage (Interview 28). The ATR is an IT interface linking national databases on trade-related information, including tariff nomenclature, rules of origin, non-tariff measures, and other information (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019b). Similar to the ATR, the ASW connects national single windows to expedite the exchange of customs data, and thereby, facilitate customs clearances, permits, and other documentation (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019c). There are some doubts over compatibility between these systems, with ARISE representatives suggesting that ATR may eventually supplant ASW. Ultimately, however, the systems are all broadly similar in objectives and means, meaning that they are rather complementary. ASSIST, the ATR, and the ASW use the ASEAN Secretariat as a central administrator to manage the technical platforms on which the systems are based (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019d; Interview 2; Interview 67). All these projects, however, primarily rely on national-level implementation, which is why both US ACTI and ARISE primarily conduct implementation support activities nationally. ARISE has conducted national-level workshops on the projects in member states, building national-level support for the trade facilitation policies and corresponding technical systems (ARISE, 2013b; ARISE+, 2016; The Borneo Post, 2019). The US’s ACTI has, over long periods of time, supported the implementation of national single windows by convening regular workshops (Interview 2; Interview 67). The importance of the national-level components to the success of these projects is apparent in the sizeable funds dedicated by ARISE+ to national support, aimed at propelling implementation in seven of the ten member states. ARISE+’s national-level activities are endowed with an additional budget of e50 million, larger than the ARISE+

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regional budget of e22 million (ARISE+, 2019; European Union, 2019; Interview 28; Interview 4). 4.2.4

Monitoring

The ASEAN member states’ recent push towards a buildup of analytical capacity within the Secretariat in the AEC have prompted dialogue partners to support monitoring by various means. This is the stage at which dialogue partner agency is most strongly entangled with that of the ASEAN Secretariat. Historically, monitoring has been carried out by the sectoral bodies themselves, which continue to set their own parameters for monitoring and decide on their own arrangements. Increasingly, however, monitoring functions are being taken up by ASEC, particularly under the AEC pillar. Given the constraints on monitoring within ASEAN due to the long absence of monitoring systems independent of member state influence, not all dialogue partners found monitoring support to be a meaningful activity (Interview 21). External actors have two distinctive ways of supporting monitoring and evaluation: (1) monitoring support provided to the sectoral bodies themselves; and (2) the establishment of monitoring systems and support provided to the ASEAN Secretariat. Under the first type of agency, dialogue partners primarily provide institutional support by funding consultants to carry out mid-term reviews or final reviews of projects or work plans for sectoral bodies. This is done regularly by Australia, for instance, which has provided support to external policy reviews through its ASEAN-Australian Development Cooperation Program Phase II fund (Australian Aid, 2019). The fund has supported 18 technical reports that can be broadly characterized as monitoring (Australian Aid, 2019). Japan has also funded policy reviews of this type, although only rarely. The Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund website lists one evaluation under the AEC from 2014 until 2019 (JapanASEAN Integration Fund, 2019). ARISE and ARISE+ have provided monitoring support to the ASEAN Transit Transport Coordinating Board (ARISE, 2013a) and the ASEAN Consultative Committee on Standards and Quality (ARISE, 2015), for instance, on the cosmetics directive (Interview 28), as well as to ASEAN’s Trade Facilitation Joint Consultative Committee (ARISE+, 2018). There are efforts to push sectoral bodies’ monitoring systems beyond their current ad hoc-ism. The objectives of ARISE+ include developing monitoring systems for the ASEAN

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Consultative Committee on Standards and Quality, moving beyond the provision of individual studies (ARISE+, 2016). The second type of support provided is the development and establishment of monitoring systems within ASEAN, involving the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate. The division itself downplays the relevance of dialogue partners in its establishment, emphasizing that its current role is based on intra-ASEAN dynamics (Interview 12; Interview 28). Historically, the most significant external support to monitoring in the AEC focused on the AEC scorecard, which was first adopted with the AEC Blueprint in 2007. The scorecard was supported by a variety of actors over the years (Interview 12), most significantly by the US’s ADVANCE (Interview 34) and later the EU’s ARISE (Interview 28) project. Despite the US support for the early version of the scorecard, the concept was based on EU best practice (Interview 34), highlighting cross-fertilization between dialogue partners. ARISE support to what was first called the AEC scorecard and later the enhanced scorecard ultimately led to the conceptualization of the AEC monitoring system (ARISE, 2015; Interview 28). The development of the criteria for the enhanced scorecard closely involved ASEC staff (ARISE, 2013b, 2014). AIMO, AIMD’s predecessor, was a major beneficiary of support under ARISE, which noted that AIMO has a unique role and responsibility with regard to the monitoring of ASEAN REI [regional economic integration]. However it has severely constrained resources and does not have a coherent monitoring structure at the AMS [ASEAN member state] level to support its endeavours […]. (ARISE, 2013a, p. 27)

Another project that primarily targeted ASEC is COMPASS, a statistical support project funded by the EU, aiming to build the capacity of ASEANstats and AIMO, which later merged to form AIMD. COMPASS aimed to increase the availability and dissemination of AEC-related statistics, but also offered statistical capacity building to Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV) (Tiranutti, 2013). ARISE+ continues to support the AEC monitoring and evaluation framework wholesale, particularly the activities mandated to AIMD (see Sect. 3.2.4). The ARISE+ work plan refers to AIMD as the primary beneficiary of the support provided to the AEC monitoring system (ARISE+, 2016), highlighting the growing role of ASEC in contributing to policy

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making at this stage as well as the role of external partner support in strengthening it. The work plan cites the following rationale for its support to AIMD: Given its resource constraints, increased demand for analytical work highlights the increased need for resources including those required to articulate and disseminate results from the monitoring and evaluation of the AEC Blueprint 2025 […]. (ARISE+, 2016, p. 119)

In addition to its support to AIMD, ARISE+ is also slated to provide support to ASEANstats for the maintenance of the economic databases, following the conclusion of the COMPASS project (ARISE+, 2016). It is important to see ARISE’s support to the Secretariat in context, however. In the most recent work plan from ARISE+, less than 10% of all support is provided to ASEC directly, the remainder primarily benefiting sectoral bodies (ARISE+, 2016). This illustrates that despite the larger involvement of ASEC, most external funds are dedicated to activities involving the member states. ASEAN’s ability and willingness to monitor progress in regional economic cooperation is growing. The corresponding buildup of monitoring capacity is an intra-organizational trend, with explicit buy-in from the member states (Interview 56). From this vantage point, it would be reductionist to attribute the growth of ASEC monitoring capacity purely to dialogue partner support. The increase of monitoring capacity, however, can be at least partly tied to support provided by the dialogue partners over the years. External actors appear to be universally interested in building up Secretariat capacity in monitoring, suggesting that monitoring is an activity with the potential to empower the bureaucracy (Interview 28; Interview 6). There are theoretical and practical implications to the concurrent strengthening of ASEC’s analytical capacity and the support by external actors. Given that this is the primary area in which ASEC and partners are currently collaborating, it provides an interesting testing ground for the limits of ASEAN as an open system.

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4.3

Summary

Permitted by ASEAN member states as well as a relatively empowered section of the ASEAN Secretariat, dialogue partners exhibit a high degree of agency in the APSC. In line with the preponderance of the sectoral bodies in ASEAN’s economic policy-making processes, most support is provided to them, resulting in what is here termed intergovernmental policy-making support. The external actors engaging with ASEAN in the AEC have similar ways of supporting the organization but differ in the areas in which they are lending support. This is also due to ASEAN’s partner management systems in the AEC, which encourage segmentation. Dialogue partners lend support throughout the policy cycle, including in agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. Particularly notable is the depth of their engagement at the formulation and monitoring stages. Formulation sees a large number of studies and other inputs provided through partner funding. Monitoring, meanwhile, is notable for dialogue partner support to the Secretariat. Remarkable dynamics between dialogue partners and ASEAN member states are apparent at the formulation and implementation stage, where external actors appear to occasionally stoke competition between ASEAN member states in order to propel formulation and implementation progress. In line with its more empowered role under the AEC, the Secretariat is engaged in channeling dialogue partner support to the sectoral bodies. In monitoring, the Secretariat also plays a role of its own, through its AIMD. The growth of the directorate is at least partly related to the dialogue partner support that has been provided through a variety of projects. The trend towards the building up of Secretariat analytical capacity is likely to affect dialogue partner agency in the AEC positively, given the close relationships that partners maintain with the Secretariat.

References AANZFTA Economic Co-operation Support Programme. (2009). Design Document. ARISE. (2013a). Annual Work Plan 1. ARISE. (2013b). Overall Work Plan. ARISE. (2014). Annual Work Plan 2. ARISE. (2015). Annual Work Plan 3. ARISE+. (2016). ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the European Union— (ARISE) Plus: Overall Work Plan.

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ARISE+ (2018). Work Plan 1. ARISE+. (2019). ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the European Union— (ARISE) Plus: Work Plan 1. ASEAN Secretariat. (2017). Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR) Handbook. ASEAN Secretariat. (2019a). ASEAN Customs Transit System. https://acts.asean. org/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2019b). ASEAN Trade Repository. https://atr.asean.org/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2019c). ASEAN Single Window. http://asw.asean.org/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2019d). ASEAN Solutions for Investments, Services and Trade. https://assist.asean.org/ Australian Aid. (2019). Our Program AADCP II . http://aadcp2.org/our-pro gram/ European Union. (2019). EU Cooperation with ASEAN . https://eeas.europa. eu/sites/eeas/files/eu-asean_cooperation_dec_2018.pdf Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. (2019). ASEAN-Japan Cooperation Project Supported by the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF): Component: JAIF: 2.0. https://jaif.asean.org/pdf/I.%20JAIF2.0%20190624_List%20of%20Proj ect%20as%20of%20May%202019.pdf Kuik, C.-C. (2008). The Essence of Hedging: Malaysia and Singapore’s Response to a Rising China. Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Affairs, 30(2), 159–185. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/256 501/pdf Nair, D. (2015). Saving the States’ Face: An Ethnography of the ASEAN Secretariat and Diplomatic Field in Jakarta (Dissertation). London School of Economics. Rüland, J. (2012). The Limits of Democratizing Interest Representation: ASEAN’s Regional Corporatism and Normative Challenges. European Journal of International Relations, 20(1), 1–25. The Bangkok Post. (2019). The Significance of Asean’s Retreats. https://www.ban gkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1611290/the-significance-of-aseans-retreats The Borneo Post. (2019). Expert Urges SMEs to Leverage ASSIST Mechanism to Flag Unfair Measures. https://www.theborneopost.com/2019/01/09/exp ert-urges-smes-to-leverage-assist-mechanism-to-flag-unfair-measures/ Tiranutti, V. (2013). Presentation: EU-ASEAN Capacity Building Project for Monitoring Integration Progress and Statistics. https://www.unescap.org/ sites/default/files/6.EU-ASEAN%20compass.pdf US Mission to ASEAN. (2018). U.S.-ASEAN Connect Digital Economy Series Event in Ho Chi Minh City. https://asean.usmission.gov/u-s-asean-connectdigital-economy-series-event-in-ho-chi-minh-city/ US-ASEAN Business Council. (2018). Leading U.S. Technology Firms Join ASEAN Telecommunications and IT Ministers to Reaffirm Partnership to

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Advance Cybersecurity, AI and Privacy. https://www.usasean.org/press-rel ease/2018/12/06/leading-us-technology-firms-join-asean-telecommunicati ons-and-it-ministers Zimpel, S. (2017). Presentation: Review of Capacity-Building in and Technical Assistance on Consumer Protection Law and Policy. https://unctad.org/mee tings/en/Presentation/Presentation%20by%20GIZ%20on%20Review%20of% 20capacity-building%20in%20and%20technical%20assistance%20on%20cons umer.pdf

CHAPTER 5

The Involved Networker: Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Political-Security Community

This chapter addresses the exercise of agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the ASEAN Political-Security Community, both in relation to the member states, as well as the dialogue partners. The policy cycle is again applied as a heuristic to identify instances of agency by the Secretariat. Analyzing the actions of the ASEAN Secretariat in agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring allows for a more detailed assessment of the bureaucracy’s role in the realm of political and security cooperation. The ASEAN Political-Security Community is characterized by very low involvement of the ASEAN Secretariat at all stages, although with a slight trend towards deeper involvement. The Secretariat provides primarily facilitative support to a variety of intergovernmental bodies. Nonetheless, there appear to be some rare instances where ASEC bureaucrats play minor roles in policy making through the provision of discussion and analysis papers to member state bodies at the formulation stage. The establishment of the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division is also noteworthy and monitoring mechanisms are currently under development. Even in the APSC, the Secretariat can be labeled as the Involved Networker, although its role is slighter than under the AEC. This chapter begins with an outline of the policy dynamics within ASEAN’s political pillar, the ASEAN Political-Security Community (5.1). In the following section, the agency of the Secretariat in ASEAN’s political pillar is presented in a general sense (5.2). Following this general © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_5

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overview of ASEC’s role, sub-sections outline the Secretariat’s role in agenda setting (5.2.1), formulation (5.2.2), implementation (5.2.3), and monitoring (5.2.4). The chapter concludes with a summary (5.3).

5.1

The ASEAN Political-Security Community

ASEAN was famously established as a regional security organization, following a uniquely Southeast Asian model of preventive diplomacy (Acharya, 2001) and community building, which has been described by Kishore Mahbubani (2017) as based on a “combination of fear, luck and golf.” ASEAN’s earliest agreements were all related to political affairs, such as the 1971 Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) Declaration. At the first ASEAN Summit in 1976, the heads of state signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), which has since become a cornerstone document for all states seeking diplomatic engagement with ASEAN (Goh, 2007). In 1995, the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ) Treaty was signed, but only became fully ratified in 2001. Most progress on regional security community building therefore preceded the evolution of ASEAN into a more economically focused organization from 1992 onward. Through its mechanisms of conflict prevention and political dialogue, ASEAN has managed to avoid war since the end of the CambodiaVietnam conflict in 1989. While militarized interstate disputes have since occurred in Southeast Asia, the practices cultivated in conflict management have enabled the member states to prevent and mitigate more significant conflicts (Glas, 2017). While the viability of its conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms has long been criticized (Leifer, 1999), ASEAN has since managed to expand its model for security dialogue to the larger East Asian region. From the 1990s onward, ASEAN has established a number of regional security forums, consisting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (1994), the East Asia Summit (2005), and the ADMMPlus (2010). When evaluating ASEAN’s progress in political-security cooperation, it is therefore important not to limit one’s assessments to ASEAN’s internal processes, but also to consider its engagement of external actors. External relations have always been understood as a fundamental function of ASEAN’s APSC pillar. Compared to ASEAN’s progress in designing and adopting preventive security agreements between the 1970s and the 1990s, the organization’s more recent cooperation efforts in the APSC appear more modest. Some

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assessments suggest that while low-hanging fruit has been harvested, the organization struggles with more advanced political-security agreements (Interview 51; Sukma, 2012). Frustrated political negotiations have abounded since the much-criticized accession of Myanmar to the organization in 1997, although some progress has been made on issues of non-traditional security (Caballero-Anthony, 2008, 2010). In recent years, diplomatic failures have seemed to accumulate, most notably through the failure to issue a joint communiqué on the South China Sea issue in 2012 and the Philippines’ “setting aside” of the South China Sea tribunal ruling in 2016 (Ibarra, 2018). This has led many observers to be pessimistic regarding further progress by ASEAN as a security community (Chang, 2016; Emmers, 2017). Pessimism is also rife within the organization itself, with the APSC seen as not having made much progress since the adoption of the ASEAN Charter in 2007 and lagging behind the AEC. Member state representatives have expressed frustration regarding the lack of substantial policies under the APSC as well as the continued focus on old agreements such as the ZOPFAN and the TAC (Interview 51). As of 2020, ASEAN listed only 14 distinctive agreements with legal character under the APSC pillar, with only four having been adopted since the ASEAN Charter. This stalled policy making within the APSC may be explained by certain limits on ASEAN cooperation or by the organization’s pivot towards a more outward-looking strategy in its security dialogues. ASEAN may have been preoccupied with the management of external threats as opposed to dedicating resources to the upgrading of its own security community. Observers see an obstacle to more substantial cooperation in the stalled debate on the meaning of “rules-based ASEAN,” an idea which was seen as having progressed further under the AEC than under the APSC (Interview 51). The rise of non-traditional security threats has also required ASEAN to change its focus in the political-security realm (Caballero-Anthony, 2008). This focus is reflected in the handful of recent agreements under the APSC pillar. The four documents with legal character that have been adopted since the ASEAN Charter are the ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (2007), the Protocol to the ASEAN Charter on Dispute Settlement Mechanisms (2010), the Third Protocol Amending the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (2010), and the ASEAN Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (2015). In the meantime, other areas have seen only partial progress, with the Plan of Action for Cooperation

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on Immigration Matters (2000) and ASEAN cooperation on extradition lingering with few prospects of legal consolidation. In the latter case, slight progress has been made with the conclusion of the ASEAN model extradition treaty (2018) (Interview 51). Another policy in which progress has been made is the Treaty on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters among Like-Minded ASEAN Countries (2004) (Aguinaldo, 2019; Interview 51). In the absence of significant and meaningful documents with legal character, the APSC Blueprint remains the key document for ASEAN’s political-security agenda. The plan lists three objectives: political cooperation, security cooperation, and external relations (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016b). Human Rights are also conspicuously mentioned in the blueprint, which highlights the establishment of AICHR as well as the adoption of the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration as the most significant achievements. This broad focus is representative of the APSC pillar, which continues to address big-picture questions of regional cooperation and security. While the conclusion of agreements in the Political-Security Community has been slow, a number of sectoral bodies have adopted work plans, similar to the process outlined in Sect. 3.2.2 on the AEC. Given ASEAN’s character as a security community centered on dialogue and soft legalization, soft law documents such as action plans are as important as conventions and protocols when considering institutional progress. Many member state representatives continue to view the APSC primarily as an arena for building trust rather than one for making decisions (Interview 65). Secretariat staff were keen to emphasize that while the APSC remains executive-centered, its sectoral bodies have nonetheless become more diversified and professionalized compared to the golf-playing days of ASEAN’s early history (Interview 65). Examples of substantial action plans include the Bohol Trafficking in Persons Work Plan (2017b), the Plan of Action in Combating Transnational Crime (2016), the Plan of Action to Prevent and Counter the Rise of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism (2018), the Revised Work Plan on Maintaining and Enhancing ASEAN Centrality (2015) (Interview 60; Natalegawa, 2018), and the Comprehensive Plan of Action on Counter Terrorism (2017a). Looking at the issues addressed by these plans, it is clear that recently adopted policies are focusing on non-traditional security challenges such as drug trafficking, trafficking in persons, terrorism, and cybercrime (Interview

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16; Interview 51; Interview 60). Beyond such action plans, other documents released by ASEAN include external strategies such as the recent Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). The formulation of a code of conduct for the South China Sea has long been debated within the APSC, without much in the way of results. Overall, the impetus within the APSC pillar lies with issues of non-traditional security, particularly issues under the purview of the AMMTC. Unlike in the AEC, it is not clear that policy-making dynamics in the APSC are affected by changes in ratification requirements or cooperation standards. Instead, ASEAN appears to largely retain its traditional values of consensus and unanimity in the Political-Security Community.

5.2

Agency by the ASEAN Secretariat in the APSC

Even in the context of ASEAN’s general executive-centeredness, the ASEAN Political-Security Community is notable for the dominance of state-led bodies. Still, the APSC Blueprint, in line with most ASEAN documents, calls for a strengthening of the Secretariat, particularly regarding its support for the ARF and the EAS. It is clear that over the past decade, the relevant Secretariat divisions have seen some growth in their competences, although they continue to lag behind their colleagues under the AEC. The general push for analytical capacity within ASEC has also had an impact on APSC divisions, although to a lesser degree than in the AEC. Member state perspectives on the envisioned role of ASEC under the APSC differ, however, with only some member states arguing for the Secretariat to play a larger role (Interview 53; Interview 56). The more modest role of the Secretariat in the APSC may be explained by the controversial nature of the issues discussed within the pillar and by member state insistence on complete sovereignty (Interview 10). While ASEC staff are present during the majority of ASEAN sectoral body meetings and are sometimes responsible for the preparation of outcome documents, they largely serve a facilitative function and are typically only tasked with the preparation of meetings as well as other ad hoc tasks. According to member state representatives, Secretariat staff rarely provide substantial input to discussions, and only when explicitly instructed to do so (Interview 56). Former ASEC staff remarked that their role was bigger in the past, prior to Surin Pitsuwan’s term as Secretary General (Interview 16). It appears, however, that in some sectoral bodies, ASEC staff retain the ability to influence the content of outcome documents (Interview 35).

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The executive-centeredness of the APSC is reflected in the structure of the Secretariat’s political-security pillar. In the Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Secretariat is separated into the Political-Security Directorate and the External Relations Directorate (see Fig. 5.1.). Both directorates disaggregate into several divisions, which are not publicly distinct in their mandate. In the case of the External Relations Directorate, three divisions are subsumed, splitting ASEAN’s multifaceted external relationships into three portfolios. The Political and Security Directorate splits into two political cooperation divisions and two security cooperation divisions each. These four divisions are tasked with servicing the various sectoral bodies within the APSC pillar. In addition, the directorate subsumes the Human Rights Division, which is tasked with servicing AICHR. The centralization of decision making in a small number of sectoral bodies is reflected in the Department’s structure, with processes centered on directors and assistant directors (Interview 38). Parallel to the developments taking place across ASEAN, changes appear to be underway in the Secretariat’s role under the Political-Security Community. Following the adoption of the most recent APSC Blueprint in 2016, the Secretariat set up an Analysis and Monitoring Division, which is overseen by both APSC directorates. The entity is emphatically a division and not a directorate, unlike the corresponding AIMD in the economic pillar, highlighting the constrained nature of its role. Still, the establishment of the division has been tied to the general push for analytical capacity within ASEC (Interview 45; Interview 60; Interview 64; Interview 72). Staff within the APSC welcomed the establishment of the analysis and monitoring division (Interview 64). Line divisions had a difficult time providing analysis, even when called upon by member states, due to the existing high workload of servicing meetings (Interview 64). As part of the push for more analytical capacity, ASEC staff noted that member states were beginning to request more analysis from the Secretariat, even in the APSC (Interview 60) (Fig 5.2). Member state representatives contrasted the Secretariat’s role in the APSC with that in the AEC, highlighting that ASEC lacks expertise on political and security issues, and therefore remains relegated to a more withdrawn role (Interview 56). Member states appear to envision a limited role for ASEC, primarily as an institutional memory, cataloguing past discussions and conclusions by member states, and facilitating discussions through reminders of which issues should be addressed, which new areas should be looked into, which emerging issues require attention, and

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Fig. 5.1 Administrative entities investigated

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ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) Department

External Relations Directorate

Political & Security Directorate

Political Cooperation Division 1

APSC Analysis & Monitoring Division

External Relations Division 1

Political Cooperation Division 2

External Relations Division 2

Security Cooperation Division 1

External Relations Division 3

Security Cooperation Division 2

Human Rights Division

what ASEAN has previously done in particular areas (Interview 56). The ultimate objective is presumably not to “empower” ASEC, but rather to increase its preparedness for future member state requests, enabling the Secretariat not just to service meetings but also to provide research and analysis (Interview 72). This supports the view of the Secretariat as the Involved Networker. In the following sections, I will shed light on the agency of the Secretariat at distinctive stages of the policy-making process, including agenda

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Agenda Setting by Member States

Formulation by Member States

Formulation Support by Secretariat

Stronger Secretariat role emerging

Decision Making by Member States

Implementation by Member States

Monitoring by Member States

Stronger Secretariat role emerging

Fig. 5.2 Contribution of the ASEAN Secretariat to the APSC policy process

setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. Decision making is excluded from this overview due to the lack of Secretariat agency at this stage. 5.2.1

Agenda Setting

In the ASEAN Political-Security Community, agenda setting is strictly under the purview of member states, which have solidified their objectives in the APSC Blueprint. Sectoral bodies in the APSC also have work plans, which mandate more specific activities over a given time frame at a technical level. Both documents outline policy windows, solidifying sectoral body priorities over a number of years. A widespread phenomenon within the APSC is the existence of cross-sectoral work plans, of which there are several (Interview 60; Natalegawa, 2018). This is due to the broad range of thematic discussions in APSC sectoral bodies as well as because of the significant thematic overlaps between their agendas. Work plans are

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generally not public, but the SEANWFZ Commission, the Defense Ministers’ Meeting and the Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime have all published multi-year action plans. The Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the Law Ministers’ Meeting, and the Ministerial Meeting on Drug Matters have not. The APSC has also been subject to a concerted push to regularize work plans, like the AEC. In this pillar, however, the resulting impact has not been quite as pervasive, with few bodies choosing to publish their work plans. Some of these bodies already had work plans prior to the ASEAN Charter. The AMMTC, for instance, has consistently had a work plan since 2002, and the ADMM since its establishment in 2007. While not always as specific as the AEC work plans, the documents, nonetheless mandate certain activities, for which the Secretariat can lend support. For the majority of APSC divisions, there are scant opportunities to set the agenda, with ASEC getting “roped in” on policy issues (Interview 45). The constant communication between ASEC and the sectoral bodies, however, sometimes appears to allow for a sort of passive agenda setting, proposing modifications to administrative procedures that may have effects on member state discussions. Similar to its role in the AEC, ASEC’s role is frequently facilitative, aiming to ensure coherence and continuity across intergovernmental meetings. This is done by consulting existing work plans and reminding sectoral body chairs of what has been done in the past and what should be done in the future (Interview 58). Due to the overlapping nature of discussions, the Secretariat frequently transfers information between sectoral bodies (Interview 45) and forums involving dialogue partners. This means that ASEC works to coordinate sectoral body agendas on issues that involve more than one sectoral body with the aim of ensuring coherence. In one particular instance of metaagenda setting, the Secretariat has suggested to sectoral bodies that APSC sectoral bodies’ meeting schedules should be temporally and geographically coordinated to facilitate deliberation on issues with importance across multiple working groups (Interview 58). Surprisingly, member state representatives sometimes criticized ASEC’s withdrawn role in providing substance to APSC sectoral body meetings. One point of criticism is that ASEC does not prepare conference papers prior to meetings (Interview 51), something that the APSC divisions had supposedly done in the past, prior to the member state pushback resulting from Surin Pitsuwan’s tenure (Interview 16). In general, however, member states insist that they do not want ASEC to play a more substantial agenda-setting role within the APSC beyond its role as an information repository and facilitator (Interview 56).

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5.2.2

Formulation

In tandem with agenda setting, ASEAN sectoral bodies are also in full control of policy formulation processes in the Political-Security Community. Still, some agency is exhibited by the Secretariat at the formulation stage, following agenda setting by sectoral bodies. Within the scope of their relationships with sectoral bodies, ASEC divisions are somewhat empowered to set up policy options for member states (Interview 35). In fact, formulation is likely where the Secretariat is most active within the APSC. Its agency in policy formulation can be broadly categorized into three types: (1) formulation support to sectoral body work plans; (2) provision of analysis to sectoral body meetings; and (3) identification of external support for activities. The provision of formulation support by the Secretariat under the APSC is made difficult by the absence of legal agreements and the prevalence of informal deliberation in the policy area. The divisions are, however, occasionally involved in the drafting of work plans (Interview 71), although this involvement tends to be in a more facilitative function. ASEC is occasionally in charge of reviewing past work plans and activities to compare them with planned activities and priorities, notifying sectoral bodies of potential oversights (Interview 71). Ultimately, work plans are always vetted by member states. Unlike in the AEC, the Secretariat has struggled to have a significant impact on the content and structure of work plans in the APSC, both of which have not substantially changed following the adoption of the ASEAN Charter (Interview 60). An exception to this appears to be the ARF, where ASEC staff saw more leeway for the Secretariat to become active (Interview 60). Besides formulation support to work plans, a second type of agency exercised by the APSC divisions is the provision of analysis and briefings at the request of sectoral bodies, ASEC’s leadership, or the member states (Interview 45; Interview 60; Interview 72). Generally, analysis and recommendations are commissioned from the Secretariat in cases where member states face a complex situation and/or where particular bodies, such as the CPR, lack technical knowledge on issues they have to decide on (Interview 35; Interview 60). Briefing documents are sometimes prepared for ASEAN delegations to the ARF or the EAS, with the APSC divisions providing background papers on issues to be discussed (Interview 35; Interview 58). Some ASEC divisions describe this as “substantive” and not simply “facilitative” work (Interview 60; Interview 71).

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Such briefings were variously described as information, analysis, or discussion papers (Interview 60; Interview 64; Interview 71). The political and security divisions distinguish between information papers and assessment papers (Interview 35; Interview 60), while the analysis and monitoring division distinguishes between policy and situation briefs (Interview 72). Information papers typically consist of summaries of results of previous meetings and are prepared with the aim of providing thematic background to sectoral bodies (Interview 35; Interview 60). Assessment papers rather focus on current issues, either related to external relations or intra-ASEAN issues (Interview 60). ASEC staff were vocal that these papers were not to be considered white papers in the EU fashion (Interview 60). Still, some of these papers were said to have a policy paper character (Interview 60). Issues addressed by such papers include the Trump-Kim summit in Vietnam (Interview 45), Timor Leste’s potential accession to ASEAN (Interview 60), the situation in Rakhine state (Interview 60), and the rise of China (Interview 60). For meetings involving dialogue partners and other external actors, such as those of the ARF or the EAS, topics of briefing papers could be even more diverse, including sustainable cities as well as nuclear and biological security (Interview 35; Interview 58). While the impact of these background and analysis papers is difficult to gauge, it is fair to assume that the Secretariat is empowered to provide not only information, but also recommendations on certain issues. To which degree this is done likely depends on the relationship to the sectoral body in question as well as the individual inclination of the responsible Secretariat staff. Another type of analysis conducted by the APSC divisions addresses external relations, focusing on potential treaty accessions or the relationships to particular external actors in general terms. The APSC divisions are involved in the assessment of new dialogue partnerships, having, for instance, conducted a scoping of the potential sectoral partnership with Turkey and requests for accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (Interview 45; Interview 72). Since most ASEAN agreements do not lay out specific accession criteria for new members, such analyses are needed on an ad hoc basis and are usually requested by the ASEAN chair (Interview 45). Even though the number of requests for analysis to the Secretariat is increasing, the follow-up to such reports was criticized. The impact of analysis provided differed strongly depending on the willingness of member states to take ASEC’s proposals into account (Interview 60).

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Secretariat staff noted that member states tended to neglect the inputs and bypass the recommendations made (Interview 60). This situation begs the question of why Secretariat assessments are requested in the first place. The prospects for increased analytical capacity of the Secretariat were questioned, given these circumstances. Explanations offered regarding member states’ rejection of ASEC inputs made reference to the nature of discussions in the political-security pillar, which are of a less technical nature than those in the AEC (Interview 35). This suggests that in areas of political cooperation, the expertise of an expert body is less in demand than on issues of economic cooperation, where there often is a technocratic consensus on a particular course of action. Another explanation offered regarding the obstacles faced by Secretariat contributions referred to the objectives of the policy area. The APSC Blueprint generally envisions only the continuation of dialogue in a given area. The lack of an obvious endpoint to cooperation, such as in the AEC, was seen as another aspect blocking receptivity to impartial advice (Interview 35). The third type of agency exhibited by the Secretariat in policy formulation under the APSC is the identification of external support for planned activities. Unlike the divisions under the AEC, the line divisions under the APSC pillar, namely the divisions tasked with political and security cooperation, do not engage directly in negotiations with dialogue partners (Interview 60), although there appear to be some exceptions to this rule. The leadership of ASEC’s two APSC directorates suggested that the divisions are indeed occasionally involved in mobilizing resources for sectoral body activities, following member state specifications (Interview 35). At the most basic level, the three external relations divisions support the formulation of the plans of action with ASEAN’s dialogue partners (Interview 60; Interview 64; Interview 65). The plans of action are documents governing cooperation and institutional support provided by external actors over a timespan of multiple years, outlining relationship priorities and objectives. The role of the divisions in formulating these documents is modest, however, limited to providing a conduit for communication between external actors and ASEAN member states (Interview 65). In such instances, the divisions are sometimes involved with external actors in an “institutional memory” capacity (Interview 64), but member state representatives were quick to note that the Secretariat was not empowered to discuss technical issues (Interview 65). Nonetheless, ASEC has been described as the “hub” for external partner engagement by some member state representatives (Interview

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53), highlighting that divergent views exist on ASEC’s role in this area. Several instances of substantial contributions by the Secretariat to such negotiations can be highlighted. In the case of a recent memorandum of understanding on cooperation in counterterrorism with Australia, ASEC made a tangible contribution to the formulation by proposing areas of cooperation, assessing what ASEAN can offer and what Australia was willing to support (Interview 53). Australia in turn used the Secretariat as an information resource as well as an institutional hub to engage the CPR and the sectoral bodies simultaneously (Interview 53). Member states were vocal that they would not be anywhere near this MoU without ASEC (Interview 51; Interview 53), although some member state representatives were less positive, suggesting that this was a controversial case of agency (Interview 56). Another example is the case of cybersecurity. In 2018, ASEC provided the CPR with documents outlining what the UN had done in the policy area (Interview 56). This information was then used in negotiations with external actors interested in supporting cybersecurity activities (Interview 56). In some cases, analysis work by ASEC is connected to external partner relations. The needs assessment that was done on the situation in Rakhine state included information on what activities could be conducted by ASEAN and which dialogue partners could provide funding (Interview 60). The APSC divisions even went as far as drafting the terms of reference for the needs assessment (Interview 60), highlighting their potential as resource mobilizers. Such agency points to the role that the Secretariat may play in facilitating the inclusion of policy sub-communities at the formulation stage, even in the APSC. Overall, however, it is clear that civil society and consultant involvement in formulation under the APSC is not as wide-ranging as under the AEC. While action plans may occasionally see reviews carried out by external consultants, formulation in the APSC is generally characterized by low amounts of external input. It is clear that the provision of analysis and research under the APSC relies more strongly on internal resources. The support of internal analytical capacity should therefore also be seen as a move by member states to preclude external stakeholder involvement in the APSC. With the push for analytical capacity, changes are underway regarding the involvement of APSC divisions in policy formulation. For now, the most apparent change is the establishment of the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division and its formulation of a new monitoring mechanism. Member states had already suggested that it was important to look at

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“how activities affect the national level,” which the division took as a cue to suggest some aspects that could be monitored and what a potential system could look like (Interview 45). In keeping with the idea of the monitoring and analysis entities functioning as a “mini think-tank” (Interview 45), the division was set up to do analysis rather than service sectoral bodies (Interview 58). In this capacity, the division drafts policy briefings of its own. In 2019, it released what are known as “think pieces” at a pace of one per month (Interview 45), primarily for the consumption of the ASEC leadership (Interview 72). It is therefore possible that APSC will move towards a division of labor, with the line divisions servicing the sectoral bodies on request, while the monitoring division serves the ASEC leadership (Interview 72). While member states are also encouraged to request analysis from the monitoring division, this has not yet happened (Interview 72). Although much less significant than its agency in the AEC, the Secretariat exercises a fair amount of agency at the formulation stage in the APSC. As in other areas, its degree of influence depends on the relevant sectoral body and the responsible member states. It appears that through the mediums of analysis and briefings, some ASEC directorates are managing to have substantial influence on formulation processes. Notably, the push for analytical capacity affecting the entirety of the ASEAN Secretariat appears to have as its aim to preserve ASEAN-ownership over the analysis process and preclude external influence at this stage. 5.2.3

Implementation

Across ASEAN, the implementation of policies remains firmly in the hands of the member states. ASEC has no significant role in the implementation of APSC activities, but exhibits marginal agency in a supporting role, as an information repository for member state commitments, as well as a resource mobilizer for external support. The only way in which ASEC can affect the implementation of decisions made under the APSC is by reminding sectoral bodies of their commitments made under past work plans, highlighting that a given activity should be carried out before a particular deadline (Interview 71). The mobilization of partner support for sectoral body activities is another avenue for agency for ASEC, although to a lesser degree than under the AEC. This is connected to the fact that political and security issues are under the purview of the foreign ministries, which conduct

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external relations of their own. Observers have noted that ASEC’s competence in identifying potential partner cooperation projects used to be higher prior to the adoption of the ASEAN Charter (Interview 51). Previously, ASEC offered external actors “a wish list of a menu of options,” a service some member states found useful (Interview 51). In ASEAN’s current institutional setup, the CPR is the body that sees itself as the central player in such cases. Sectoral body representatives find this suboptimal, with the CPR lacking experience in the negotiation of such specific programs (Interview 51). Even though action plans have made resource mobilization easier through their listing of planned activities, the marginalization of ASEC in the process has been lamented by member state representatives (Interview 51). Nonetheless, some contact remains between external actors and APSC divisions, particularly those concerned with external relations (Interview 45; Interview 60; Interview 64; Interview 65). The Secretariat’s role in mobilizing partner support is facilitated by its central position and the fact that some policy areas have an overwhelming number of sectoral bodies involved in dialogue, resulting in dialogue partners requiring internal support in order to understand intra-ASEAN dynamics. 5.2.4

Monitoring

In all sectoral bodies in the political pillar, the primary responsibility for monitoring lies with the member states. This not only results in relatively loose monitoring arrangements in general, but also frequently creates incoherence within the APSC pillar due to different interpretations of monitoring commitments by sectoral bodies (Interview 51). At the same time, the Secretariat has long had a mandate to monitor activities under the APSC pillar. The Plan of Action in Combating Transnational Crime, for instance, calls for ASEC to compile annual reviews of the body’s work plans and support the body to “report the achievements made by ASEAN Member States, including recommendations to effectively implement the current ASEAN Plan of Action […]” (ASEAN Secretariat, 2016a, p. 9). This is a typical example of a monitoring arrangement under the APSC, with similar clauses contained within the Convention Against Trafficking in Persons as well as the Plan of Action to Prevent and Counter the Rise of Radicalisation and Violent Extremism (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015, 2018). Despite its official mandate, however, ASEC’s monitoring practices remain modest. In some cases, for instance in counterterrorism, ASEC

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divisions have actually rejected monitoring responsibility, citing a lack of staff capacity (Interview 63). Some changes are underway regarding ASEC’s role in monitoring under the APSC, however. Similar to the AIMD in the AEC, the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division was set up in 2018 to bolster ASEC’s role as a monitoring entity. In monitoring, the APSC pillar is considered the least developed of the three pillars, the “kid brother” (Interview 45). The capacity of the division remains modest, with a staff of three in total as of 2019 (Interview 58), which constrains the scope of potential activities (Interview 72). Directorates under the ASEAN Political-Security Community exercise agency in monitoring in three distinct ways: (1) monitoring of sectoral bodies and external relations by the line divisions; (2) development of a monitoring system by the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division; and (3) other ad hoc monitoring activities by the monitoring division. At the most basic level, the security and political cooperation divisions carry out monitoring of sectoral body activities, checking which ones have been concluded and providing simple analysis regarding how they relate to the objectives of the APSC Blueprint. Such reports are submitted for approval to the relevant sectoral body, providing ASEC with only limited ability to independently or publicly report on actual progress. The external relations divisions, in turn, are tasked with the monitoring of dialogue partner plans of action (Interview 64), a task which was described as essentially consisting of checking activities conducted (Interview 4). Even member states described the prevailing practice of monitoring as a “simplistic ticking off of implemented activities” (Interview 53). Given the vague nature of action and workplans under the APSC, the impact of such monitoring activities should not be overstated. The second type of agency exhibited by the Secretariat is the development of a monitoring system. Following its establishment, the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division began to draft a concept note for a potential future monitoring system for the APSC. The development of a mechanism in line with ASEAN’s political-security policies appears to be a challenge, however. Documents under the APSC pillar are light on substantial policies, most objectives and activities consisting of meetings and conferences aiming for further dialogue. While the emergence of sectoral work plans has provided Secretariat staff with some indication of what could be monitored (Interview 45), the APSC Blueprint was still mentioned as the reference document for the future monitoring system

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(Interview 35; Interview 45). This poses significant difficulties in practice due to the diffuse nature of the document (Interview 45; Interview 72). Because of this, ASEC staff were in the process of breaking down the blueprint into more discrete activities with the aim of being able to distinguish what things have actually been implemented and whether targets can be said to have been met (Interview 35), as well as establishing baseline indicators against which future implementation could be measured (Interview 72). The work plans of the sectoral bodies and the crosssectoral work plans prevalent within the APSC such as the Bohol work plan and that on ASEAN centrality are to be used as a basis (Interview 72). The division considered introducing quantitative indicators, developing a framework to measure the effects of meetings. For instance, one option was to analyze outcomes at the national level by assessing the domestication of policy instead of just the ratification of regional agreements (Interview 45). Data sources are another open question. At the time of writing, the division continued to rely on information gathered from the APSC line divisions, but wanted to explore independent data collection (Interview 45). One idea was to conduct country visits similar to those done by AIMD, with the aim of assessing implementation on the ground (Interview 45). The APSC monitoring division staff also expressed an interest in more deeply analyzing the existing dialogue partnerships. Despite ASEAN’s hierarchical approach to designating dialogue partners in three tiers (see Section 2.2.1), the applied terms of dialogue, sectoral, and development partners are not based on transparent criteria and do not establish clear commitments (Interview 72). The monitoring and analysis division considered an analysis of all dialogue partnerships with the aim of establishing clearer criteria (Interview 72). Given the particularities of decision making within the APSC, however, it remains unclear what type of monitoring system may get member state approval. Due to sectoral body reticence regarding collaboration with the Secretariat in the past, any change to the monitoring system will require improved relations between the two (Interview 45). While a more permanent monitoring mechanism is under development, the APSC Analysis and Monitoring Division is conducting other monitoring-like activities at the request of member states or the Secretariat leadership. Initially, the division was asked to draw up a list of cross-pillar issues, analyzing which sectoral bodies had addressed them and what relevant ASEAN documents existed (Interview 72), presumably

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with the aim of identifying overlaps. While several work plans, such as the Work Plan on ASEAN Centrality and the Work Plan on the South China Sea Code of Conduct, address cross-sectoral issues, their impact is questionable and there is significant conflict between the member states over their relevance (Interview 60). Coming up with a list of 37 areas, the division sought to make recommendations on how to coordinate on these issues in the future (Interview 72). Other ad hoc activities include the preparation of an APSC monitoring publication, similar to AIMD’s ASEAN Economic Integration Brief (Interview 72). Unlike the AIMD publications, however, this document would be for internal consumption only (Interview 72). Overall, the responsibilities accorded to the APSC monitoring division so far remain modest. Given the reticence of member states to more deeply involve ASEC in policy-making processes under the APSC, this is to be expected. Behind formulation, monitoring is the second policy stage within the APSC where Secretariat agency is clearly apparent. Although not as welldeveloped as AIMD’s monitoring functions under the AEC, the APSC monitoring division shows some nascent agency and is likely to become more significant in the future. As in formulation, the member states appear to support Secretariat capacity in monitoring to the detriment of external support, in an effort to preserve ASEAN ownership and limit external influence in this policy area.

5.3

Summary

The ASEAN Political-Security Community is characterized by its strong norms of sovereignty, emphasis on political dialogue rather than binding agreements, as well as its high degree of opacity. The mandate provided to ASEC directorates under the APSC is slighter than that under the AEC and institutional practice in policy making remains centered on member states and their executives. Still, some marginal progress is apparent in the policy area. Slight progress has been made on the solidification of policies and the opening of Secretariat-member state relations. ASEC is somewhat active in formulation and monitoring, although the role of the organization and its impact must not be overstated. Monitoring mechanisms are currently under development, which is why some changes may yet occur under the APSC. Until then, the Secretariat fulfills its role of the Involved Networker, providing primarily facilitative support to a variety of intergovernmental bodies. Nonetheless, there appear to be

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some rare instances where ASEC bureaucrats play minor roles in policy making through the provision of discussion and analysis papers to member state bodies at the formulation stage. The establishment of the APSC Monitoring and Analysis Division, although less empowered than the corresponding entity under the AEC, highlights the growth of analytical capacity across the bureaucracy, including the APSC. External partner support under the APSC is of a slightly different character than that under the AEC. While there is a significant amount of external support, as we shall see in the following chapter 6, the Secretariat does not play a role in its coordination.

References Acharya, A. (2001). Constructing a security community in Southeast Asia. Constructing a security community in Southeast Asia : ASEAN and the problem of regional order. Routledge. Aguinaldo, A. L. C. (2019). ASEAN way in criminal matters a look into ASEAN cooperation in criminal matters through a mutual legal assistance lens. Paper Prepared for the 2019 EuroSEAS Conference. ASEAN Secretariat. (2015). ASEAN Convention against trafficking in persons, especially women and children. ASEAN Secretariat. (2016a). ASEAN plan of action in combating transnational crime (2016a–2025). https://asean.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/ ASEAN-Plan-of-Action-in-Combating-TC_Adopted-by-11th-AMMTC-on20Sept17.pdf ASEAN Secretariat. (2016b). ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint 2025. ASEAN Secretariat. (2017a). ASEAN comprehensive plan of action on counter terrorism. ASEAN Secretariat. (2017b). Bohol trafficking in persons work plan 2017–2020. ASEAN Secretariat. (2018). ASEAN plan of action to prevent and counter the rise of radicalisation and violent extremism (2018–2025). ASEAN Secretariat. (2019). ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific. Caballero-Anthony, M. (2010). Non-traditional security challenges, regional governance, and the ASEAN political-security community (APSC) (Asia Security Initiatives Policy Studies, Working Paper No. 7). Centre for NonTraditional Security Studies. Caballero-Anthony, M. (2008). Non-traditional security and infectious diseases in ASEAN: Going beyond the rhetoric of securitization to deeper institutionalization. The Pacific Review, 21(4), 507–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/095 12740802294523

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Chang, J. Y. (2016). Essence of security communities: Explaining ASEAN. Int Relat Asia Pac, 16(3), 335–369. https://doi.org/10.1093/irap/lcv026 Emmers, R. (2017). Enduring mistrust and conflict management in Southeast Asia: An assessment of ASEAN as a security community. TRaNS: TransRegional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia, 5(1), 75–97. https://doi. org/10.1017/trn.2016.24 Glas, A. (2017). Habits of peace: Long-term regional cooperation in Southeast Asia. European Journal of International Relations, 23(4), 833–856. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354066116679878 Goh, E. (2007). Great powers and hierarchical order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing regional security strategies. International Security, 32(3), 113–157. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/30130520 Ibarra, E. J. A. (2018). Considerations on the legal approach to dispute settlement: The Philippine experience with the South China sea arbitration. CIRSS Commentaries (5). Leifer, M. (1999). The ASEAN peace process: A category mistake. The Pacific Review, 12(1), 25–38. Mahbubani, K., & Sng, J. (2017). The ASEAN miracle: A Catalyst for peace. National University of Singapore Press. Natalegawa, M. (2018). Does ASEAN matter? A view from within. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Sukma, R. (2012). The ASEAN political and security community (APSC): Opportunities and constraints for the R2P in Southeast Asia. The Pacific Review, 25(1), 135–152. https://doi.org/10.1080/09512748.2011.632975

CHAPTER 6

Policy-Making Support: Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the ASEAN Political-Security Community

Following the assessment of the ASEAN Secretariat’s agency in the Political-Security Community, this chapter addresses agency by ASEAN’s dialogue partners. Analogous to Chapter 4 on dialogue partner agency in the ASEAN Economic Community, the policy cycle is applied to investigate agency at distinct stages of the policy-making process, including agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. This permits the identification of actions by dialogue partners as well as their varied interactions with member states and the ASEAN Secretariat. As dialogue partners are not involved in ASEAN’s decision-making processes, this stage is excluded from the analysis. In line with the more conservative policy-making dynamics of the ASEAN Political-Security Community and retention of control by member states, agency by dialogue partners is constrained. Still, there is evidence for agency in agenda setting and formulation, although to a much lesser degree than in the AEC. Even more than in the AEC, dialogue partner support focuses on intergovernmental bodies and is, therefore, even more strongly representative of the intergovernmental policy-making support outlined in previous chapters. This chapter is structured as follows. First, an overview of ASEAN’s external relations in the APSC is provided (Sect. 6.1). Next, dialogue partner agency in the APSC is outlined in general terms (Sect. 6.2),

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_6

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followed by specific insights at the stages of agenda setting (Sect. 6.2.1), formulation (Sect. 6.2.2), implementation (Sect. 6.2.3), and monitoring (Sect. 6.2.4). The chapter concludes with a summary (Sect. 6.3).

6.1 External Relations and Policy Making in the APSC Despite ASEAN’s increasing move towards regional economic cooperation, political-security cooperation remains at the heart of Southeast Asian regionalism. Through its internal dialogues but particularly through its regional forums, ASEAN continues to play a major role not just in its own region, but in East Asia more generally. As a result, even despite the conservative policy-making dynamics of the policy area, dialogue partners have a keen interest in engaging with ASEAN in political-security dialogue and cooperation. As in other policy areas, ASEAN seeks to mobilize external resources in the APSC. While external funding is not as pervasive as in the AEC, dialogue partners are involved in a variety of policy-making processes by virtue of policy making in the APSC being closely connected to external relations. Dialogue partners have suggested that, similar to the AEC, ASEAN has become accustomed to receiving large amounts of dialogue partner funding for APSC activities (Interview 33; Interview 46). One particularity of the APSC appears to be that ASEAN seeks to hedge against dependency on individual dialogue partners by keeping partner relations competitive (Interview 33), resulting in significant overlap in cooperation portfolios. How is ASEAN’s external environment structured in the case of the APSC? As highlighted in the overview of dialogue partner support in Table 2.1 in Sect. 2.2.1, certain actors and their support are more significant within ASEAN’s Political-Security Community than others. Australia appears to be the primary financial contributor, supporting ASEAN with more than US$90 million until 2013. The US, the European Union, and Japan are the next-largest contributors, with US$26 million, US$6 million, and US$5 million in contributions, respectively. New Zealand, Canada, the ROK, and India have also provided a fair amount of support, although their involvement at the regional level was not judged as very significant by many interviewees. Russia and China have provided very little funding to the APSC. It should be noted that both China and

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Japan likely provide significant funds through other means, which may not register as regional-level support. Table 6.1 provides an overview of major institutional support projects funded by the largest providers of support to ASEAN under the APSC. It appears as if there is a lower amount of large-scale, formalized support projects under the APSC than under the AEC. This is in line with the overall lower amount of funding flowing into the APSC. Still, the small number of projects listed here certainly does not represent the bulk of the funding provided to ASEAN in the policy area. Instead, it appears as if much of the funds are provided in an ad hoc fashion or through direct negotiation, rather than technical and formalized programs as under the AEC. The large amounts Australia supposedly contribute to the APSC remain a puzzle. Given that Australia does not have any fund or largescale public program supporting APSC activities, it is difficult to account for the US$90 million it has supposedly invested into the pillar. It is likely that a portion of Australian funds represents ad hoc support provided by its foreign, development, and defense ministries. Publicly, Australia supports various APSC sectoral bodies, such as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting and the Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime in a fashion broadly similar to other partners (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017b, 2019), not indicating a particularly different depth of engagement. Under the APSC, Australia has a particularly strong focus on migration management and the prevention of trafficking in persons. Australia has dedicated programs supporting the objectives of the ASEAN-Australia Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism and the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, as well as the Australia-Asia Program to Combat Trafficking in Persons (Government of Australia, 2019a). This last program, for instance, disbursed AU$50 million from 2013 to 2018 (Government of Australia, 2019b). Given the predecessor programs, the Asia Regional Cooperation to Prevent People Trafficking (2003– 2006), and the Asia Regional Trafficking in Persons Project (2006–2013), Australia has funded cooperation in this area for a significant period. While exact budgets are hard to come by, these programs combined likely account for a significant portion of the support provided under the APSC pillar. As in the AEC, the ASEAN member states are highly concerned with their ownership of the policy processes and control over external support

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Table 6.1 Overview of external funds provided to the APSC after 2008 (selection) External actor

Project name

Time period

Funding amount

Policy area targeted

United States

Partnership for Good Governance, Equitable and Sustainable Development and Security (PROGRESS) Partnership for Regional Optimization with the Political-Security and Socio-Cultural Communities (PROSPECT) Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument (READI) Enhanced Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument (E-READI)

2013–2018

$15 million

Transnational Crime, Human Rights, Rules-based ASEANa

2018–2023

$11.3 million

Transnational Crimea

2011–2017

e7.3 million

Political Dialogue, Human Rights Dialoguea

2017–2023

e20 million

Political Dialoguea

European Union

a Includes projects under other pillars

by dialogue partners in the political-security pillar. The systems to control dialogue partner agency that have been elaborated on in Sect. 2.2.2 are as relevant in the APSC as they are in the AEC. One distinction between the two policy areas, however, is that partner segmentation does not appear to be as prevalent in the APSC as in the AEC. Instead, dialogue partner engagement is characterized by overlap, notably in areas such as counterterrorism and military cooperation. Dialogue partners frequently cover similar and reoccurring themes during conferences and meetings without recourse to previous or parallel dialogue partner meetings (Interview

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38). Since a major area of activity within the APSC is external relations, the ASEAN Secretariat plays a role in liaising with ASEAN’s dialogue partners.1 Some external actors reported close relationships with the leadership of the APSC directorates (Interview 7), if only to keep track of current developments within sectoral bodies. Faced with the opinion that dialogue partner activities under the APSC pillar show too much overlap, ASEAN representatives were insistent that overlap is not as pronounced as it appears (Interview 35; Interview 45; Interview 65). Dialogue partners, however, have complained about their lack of knowledge of parallel partner activities within a given policy area (Interview 38), suggesting that coordination is lacking. Furthermore, dialogue partners have complained about a lack of continuity and complementarity across partner-funded meetings and activities (Interview 38; Interview 45). One partner suggested that they would have preferred continuity in the sense of knowing that “this is what happened with Korea at the last East Asia Summit,” coordinating across meetings and making references in outcome documents (Interview 38). Outcome documents, usually the only publicly released information on externally funded activities, mostly lack detail, leaving outsiders in the dark regarding the content of previous discussions (Interview 38). This overlap and lack of continuity is as much an issue of intra-ASEAN dialogues, such as between the AAMTC and the ADMM, as well as of forums involving external actors, such as the EAS and the ARF (Interview 38). Unlike in the AEC, there does not appear to be much in the way of dialogue partner self-coordination. This is perhaps related to the politicized nature of discussions in the pillar, with potential self-coordination activities posing a risk of alienating ASEAN member states. How can the difference in partner coordination in the AEC and the APSC be explained, with the prior characterized by segmentation and the latter characterized by overlap? One dialogue partner representative suggested that differences are due to the substance of the policy area, with the APSC being driven by concerns of diplomacy, while the AEC addresses more substantial technical questions (Interview 67). One ASEC staff member highlighted that the security-sensitive issues under the APSC, such as, for instance, maritime affairs, where the EU, the US, China, Australia, and Japan all offer support, make it difficult to 1 Australia, Canada, PR China, the EU, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK, the US, and Russia.

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segment partner support. Choosing which partners to engage in such issue areas was described as an “almost philosophical debate” (Interview 45) about which external actor is pursuing the right approach from ASEAN’s perspective. To a certain degree, however, overlap also appears to be something ASEAN and its member states are actively striving for. On issues such as maritime security, counterterrorism, and other regional military cooperation activities, ASEAN simply does not want to be seen as taking the side of a particular dialogue partner (Haacke, 2003). There are small signs that ASEAN may in fact sometimes strive for segmentation rather than overlap. One such example is transnational crime, where various external actors have voiced an interest in supporting cooperation (Interview 51). While project modalities are not fully transparent, the Australian and US support in the field of counterterrorism are supposedly complementary, focusing on different aspects of ASEAN’s activities under its counterterrorism work plan. Another case is preventive diplomacy, where the UN, the US, the EU, and China all expressed an interest in cooperating with ASEAN. In this case, an agreement was reached that the US would focus on sectoral body capacity building, the EU on local actors, and China on non-traditional security (Interview 45).

6.2 Agency by ASEAN’s Dialogue Partners in the APSC Following the overview of ASEAN’s dialogue partner environment, I will briefly outline some characteristics of dialogue partner agency in the APSC before moving on to specific stages of the policy cycle. Even more than in the AEC, external partner support focuses on intergovernmental bodies, with essentially no involvement or support of the Secretariat. While ASEC occasionally acts as a conduit for dialogue partner agency, it is largely sidelined from the relationship. Due to the strong involvement of external actors with member state representatives through the sectoral bodies and at the national level rather than regional institutions, this type of agency may be labeled intergovernmental policy-making support. Figure 6.1 illustrates the roles of the different actors involved in this type of institutional support. The support provided to ASEAN in the APSC mirrors the intergovernmental structure of the organization, particularly its executive-centeredness. Despite some similarities, there are also differences between dialogue partner agency in the APSC and the AEC. As noted in the previous

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ASEAN Secretariat

e

Co

nt

t ina rd

ro l

o Co

Provide Resources Member States

Dialogue Partners Coordinate

Fig. 6.1 Character of institutional support to ASEAN

section, dialogue partners frequently overlap in their activities, which has some repercussions on the impacts of the institutional support provided. The character of inputs also differs between the two sectors, with external support under the APSC much more focused on political dialogue than technical expertise and advice. As a result, while the overall character of dialogue partner agency may be similar, processes and outcomes differ significantly. The idiosyncrasies of dialogue partner agency in the APSC appear to be a result of member state and Secretariat partner management mechanisms, indicating ASEAN ownership of the process. As in the AEC, there are benefits to ASEAN’s approach from the dialogue partners’ perspective. The close interaction with the intergovernmental bodies allows dialogue partners to closely follow policy-making processes and coordinate regional-level with national-level support (Interview 4). As in the AEC, most projects focus on individual sectoral bodies, aiming to propel activities in particular policy sub-fields. The only identifiable projects targeting multiple bodies under the APSC appears to be the US-funded PROGRESS/PROSPECT (APSC and ASCC) projects and the EU READI/E-READI (multi-pillar) projects. Due to the absence of large-scale projects as in the AEC, it is difficult to get a comprehensive view of which sectoral bodies receive most attention from dialogue partners.

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Given the lower degree of institutional complexity of the APSC, entry points for dialogue partner are more clearly defined than under the AEC. More clearly put, there are fewer sectoral bodies, and the high-level bodies have the explicit mandate to ensure collaboration with dialogue partners. Many bodies in the pillar even include dialogue partners as members, with the ADMM-Plus, the ARF, as well as the EAS key examples and testament to ASEAN’s character as an open system, including external actors in negotiations concerning regional order. Despite the proliferation of regional forums in political dialogue and security, both ASEAN and external actors largely see the ARF as the most significant forum (Interview 45; Interview 5). Issues related to counterterrorism, transnational crime, disaster relief, maritime security, non-proliferation and disarmament, and cybersecurity are all discussed in the ARF. The EAS and the ADMM-Plus serve a complementary function but are considered narrower in character, focusing on big-picture political discussions in the Asia-Pacific as well as defense cooperation, respectively. There appears to be a decline of dialogue partner agency as the policy process proceeds. There is significant evidence for agency, if not impact, at the agenda-setting stage. Similar to their agency in the AEC, dialogue partners contribute to the formulation of policies. Predictably, there is little agency and impact at the implementation stage, although dialogue partners certainly influence the political-security outlook of ASEAN member states outside the confines of regional institutions. There is a comparatively lower amount of agency at the monitoring stage, compared to the AEC. Most partner support is in line with sectoral work plans and the APSC Blueprint. While some work plans under the APSC, such as the Bohol Work Plan on Trafficking in Persons, include a support matrix to track partner support to distinct activities, the majority of publicly available work plans are more vague regarding what activities are to be carried out and what support may be sought. There is clear evidence, however, that the work plans are being used to mobilize and guide external partner support. In the case of US support to counterterrorism, for instance, the draft work plan for the Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime was used to obtain commitments from the US PROSPECT project (Interview 51; Interview 63). There are few exceptions to the default pathway for dialogue partner agency in the APSC. While the ASEAN Secretariat plays a facilitative role for dialogue partners, acting as a boundary spanner between them and the member states (Interview 19), ASEC does not appear to have much

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influence on programmatic aspects and is not the destination of dialogue partner support. Attempts by dialogue partners to provide support to the APSC monitoring division have been rebuffed by member states (Interview 72). Other attempts to support ASEC at the management level, for instance through an organizational review (Interview 9) or the secondment of advisors to the Secretary-General (Interview 63), equally received significant criticism by the member states.2 The member states view the buildup of capacity as a process under their purview, aiming to enable ASEC to do more of the things that are currently being outsourced to external stakeholders. This development and use of the Secretariat represent a way for ASEAN member states to reassert organizational autonomy from external actors. It is not clear, however, that the current situation will be permanent, and member states may yet permit external support to the APSC monitoring division. Similar changes in attitude have taken place in the AEC as well as in the ASCC. In the following, the strategies and impacts of external support at the stages of agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring will be highlighted to draw a clearer picture of the character of dialogue partner agency in the APSC. 6.2.1

Agenda Setting

Dialogue partner agency within the APSC is notable for its intensity at the earliest stages of the policy cycle. Many meetings conducted with the AMMTC and AMM as well as their subordinate bodies can be characterized as contributing to agenda setting. Due to the overlapping nature of these forums as well as the ADMM-Plus, the ARF, and the EAS, agenda setting within the APSC is a complex process, in which ASEAN member states appear to listen to many partners’ concerns but do not clearly follow any of them. Counter to common perception, ASEAN member states don’t see the propagation of external agendas under the APSC as particularly problematic, as APSC bodies are seen as mainly conducting workshops and meetings without significant impact on member states (Interview 51). The lack of coherence between sectoral bodies often

2 Technically speaking, both initiatives occurred under ASEAN’s community affairs pillar. Since the APSC Blueprint also contains rules-based ASEAN as one of its objectives, this example is listed here.

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results in external agendas being discussed without resulting in a transfer to other forums (Interview 51). All projects listed in Table 6.1 conduct agenda setting in sectoral bodies to a certain degree. Most broadly, agenda-setting support by external actors can be classified in three varieties: (1) agenda setting for single sectoral bodies, through the convention of additional meetings and the provision of policy input; (2) agenda setting through the convention of cross-sectoral meetings, facilitating interlinkages between different sectoral bodies; and (3) involving track II stakeholders in the agenda-setting process. Most external support targets single sectoral bodies with the aim of propelling a particular agenda forward. As in the AEC, dialogue partners can provide agenda-setting impetus through their involvement with sectoral bodies, by providing information, reports, and presentations on emerging issues (Interview 21), or reference documents on potential policies, such as human rights or counterterrorism measures (Interview 16). Dialogue partners can also support sectoral bodies through the funding of additional meetings or expert input, enabling them to speed up their activities. The UN has proposed counterterrorism documents to the AMMTC (Interview 38), Australia, and the US have proposed model documents in the areas of trafficking in persons and counterterrorism (Interview 51; Interview 63). The US has introduced inputs linking cybersecurity to economic cooperation, through its dialogue with the Telecommunications Ministers’ Meeting, an agenda which was later adopted at the 2018 ASEAN-US Summit (US Mission to ASEAN, 2018b). Agenda setting by dialogue partners in the APSC is more challenging in cases where no responsible sectoral bodies exist or when an issue is cross-sectoral or cross-pillar in nature. One concern for dialogue partners is the identification of the correct sectoral bodies to raise new agenda items. The APSC’s relatively rigid structure means that bodies often work in silos and that raising issues across thematic lines can be challenging. Often, it is not fully clear which sectoral body may discuss a specific issue, for instance cybersecurity (Interview 19). In cases where no sectoral body exists, or if agenda items are too controversial to get approval from the CPR, dialogue partners tend to carry out activities with individual member states instead (see Sect. 6.2.3). Access to sectoral bodies is not always possible for external actors, however. ASEAN permits and precludes cooperation with certain bodies, leading to situations where

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dialogue partners would like to engage with them but are not allowed to do so, particularly under the APSC (Interview 19). To overcome the challenge of cross-sectoral cooperation, the US and other partners have set up events involving multiple sectoral bodies and other stakeholders (Interview 6). The most high-profile cross-sectoral dialogues have taken place on the theme of rules-based ASEAN, for which the EU and the US have organized events encompassing different sectoral bodies. The US organized an event involving the Senior Officials’ Meeting and international experts to table proposals to flesh out what rules-based ASEAN could mean (Interview 16). Progress on the meaning of rules-based ASEAN was judged to be slow by observers, but it is considered an important activity with large potential repercussions for the institution. To engender cooperation between the areas of human rights and labor migration, the US and the EU have also supported meetings involving ASEAN’s Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and the Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime (READI-HRF, 2015, 2016) to foster discussions on their different approaches to the human trafficking agenda (Interview 6). Another activity under the US PROGRESS project aimed to propel discussions on trafficking in persons (USAID, 2016). In order to do this, the US proposed joint activities of the Senior Officials’ Meeting on Transnational Crime (SOMTC) and the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children. Through this process, Thailand assumed responsibility (ASEAN Secretariat, 2018) for organizing four workshops involving civil society and government representatives (US Mission to ASEAN, 2017b). In addition, this collaboration resulted in the development of guidelines for handling female victims of people trafficking (Interview 16; US Mission to ASEAN, 2018a). According to the Bohol Trafficking in Persons Work Plan, these guidelines, together with those of other sectoral bodies, were to be compiled and promoted in the member states (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017a). These examples highlight the potential impact of dialogue partners engaging multiple sectoral bodies simultaneously. As in the AEC, dialogue partners also exercise agency in agenda setting by including civil society and private sector stakeholders in policy-making processes. Both US and EU projects dedicate a percentage of their funds to the support of activities in collaboration with civil society. An example of this in the APSC is the US-ASEAN Partnership Forum, a fialogue primarily focused on regional security (Pacific Forum, 2019), providing a venue for actors from academia and civil society from the US and

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ASEAN member states to propagate critical views of the regional security architecture that would not be appropriate in a government-led dialogue involving sectoral bodies or the foreign ministries. Other such events were held for a variety of policy areas, aiming to provide a forum for Southeast Asian track II stakeholders to converge around common positions. Agency at the agenda-setting stage first requires access to the relevant forums by dialogues partners. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that certain partners carry out activities to forge closer relationships with sectoral bodies in order to gain a foothold and influence the policy discussions taking place. While this type of agency is not limited to the APSC, it appears to be more prevalent here. The EU’s E-READI project highlights how an external actor is attempting to move into discussions with additional sectoral bodies by establishing additional policy dialogues (Müller, 2021). The instrument gives both ASEAN and the EU the opportunity to launch new dialogues between sectoral bodies and appropriate EU Commission counterparts (Interview 20). The EU had already established a high-level dialogue on maritime security, which it saw as a powerful tool to gauge the regional situation and to assess potential for deeper involvement (Interview 5). The SOMTC as well as the ARF are seen as key forums for deepened engagement (Interview 5), and E-READI appears to have been used to fund additional activities with these bodies in an effort to improve relations between the EU and ASEAN. An EU delegation representative described the project as a tool to “feel the temperature and see where inroads can be made” (Interview 5). 6.2.2

Formulation

The APSC also exhibits a small amount of dialogue partner agency in formulation, although to a much lesser degree than in the AEC. As in the AEC, dialogue partner agency at this stage is structurally like that at the agenda-setting stage, depending on sectoral work plans and the APSC Blueprint, as well as approaches by member states. The Secretariat plays a minor role in this process, essentially acting as a facilitator between member states and dialogue partners, although there appear to be some cases where the institution has played a crucial role (Interview 51). Even more than in the AEC, member states have asserted their dominance through the CPR, closely controlling dialogue partner agency at this stage.

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Propelling formulation is more complicated in the APSC than it is in the AEC. This is because policy objectives and sectoral work plans are typically less specific and dialogue partner input is more controversial. For controversial items, external actors work through proponent countries, identifying one or two country proponents, capable of advocating for the activity the partner would like to carry out. These are frequently the larger and more democratic countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines (Interview 6). The eagerness of dialogue partners to support formulation is due to the fact that it is considered the most straightforward way to influence outputs, even in the APSC (Interview 6). Actual influence, of course, remains unpredictable and, in any case, requires long-term financial commitment. US support for the development of a cybersecurity strategy through the Telecommunications Ministers’ Meeting, for instance, required sustained support because the body’s objective of formulating a cybersecurity strategy resulted in a call for additional meetings (Interview 19). Australian support to sectoral bodies in immigration and transnational crime has taken place over more than a decade (Government of Australia, 2019b). There are two types of external actor agency apparent in the AEC: (1) providing additional expertise through reference documents, workshops, or the convention of other meetings or activities; and (2) propelling the formulation process by supporting national-level activities. While it is difficult to gauge the degree to which external actors can influence formulation, there clearly is a large amount of support provided to sectoral body meetings, which are generally tasked with formulation activities. This is likely a result of ASEAN member state partner management strategies, which aim to channel resources to the sectoral bodies. As in the AEC, sectoral bodies only have funding for a limited number of meetings, which leads dialogue partners to fund additional meetings and activities. In 2018, the ADMM and its working groups convened 33 meetings, at least 9 of which were funded by external actors (ASEAN Secretariat, 2017b). In the same year, the AMMTC and its working groups carried out 23 meetings, at least 9 of which, again, were funded by external actors (ASEAN Secretariat, 2019). Certain areas, such as counterterrorism or maritime affairs, experience involvement from essentially all significant dialogue partners in some capacity. The considerable interest of external actors in supporting formulation under the APSC coupled with ASEAN member states’ desire to keep engagement even-handed

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leads to overlap and meeting proliferation in areas where many partners are engaged. In some areas, however, partner coordination is emerging. On rules-based ASEAN, partners have carried out joint capacitybuilding workshops (US Mission to ASEAN, 2017a). In the late 2010s, there was a particular interest by dialogue partners to support the formulation of a counterterrorism work plan through the Senior Official Meeting for Transnational Crime. At a counterterrorism summit in Sydney, Australia suggested a text to the sectoral body (Interview 51). The EU provided support for a study visit on the same topic, and both the US and the UN funded several meetings to discuss contents for the work plan (Interview 51). This illustrates not only the prevalence of support for formulation outside regularly scheduled sectoral body meetings, but also the significant overlap that exists in areas of particular interest. Although not strictly carried out by a dialogue partner, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) involvement in the formulation of the ASEAN Border Management Cooperation Roadmap highlights the entire spectrum of support provided by external actors in the APSC. Support to the formulation of the policy included a high-level conference in 2019, several working sessions with Thai authorities, and presentations at the SOMT (UNODC, 2021). The formulation of the roadmap is also an example of support to formulation by way of the national level. Dialogue partners also support formulation in sectoral bodies through national-level activities. The tanker and speedboat analogy provided in the AEC related to the stoking of competition between ASEAN member states to implement regional commitments (see Sect. 4.2.2) appears to apply to some dialogue partner agency in the APSC as well, although to a much lesser degree. In the APSC, the speedboats appear to be the more democratic and larger member states, specifically Indonesia and Philippines, but also Singapore for selected issues. The EU’s development of national action plans on the prevention of violent extremism under its Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism project (Müller, 2021) appears to follow such a model. The US pursued a similar dynamic in cybersecurity, where Singapore emerged as an ally to push regional formulation processes forward (Interview 19). ASEAN states that are slower to act may in turn be pushed by the regional debate and influenced through this channel (Interview 19). The aforementioned formulation support to the ASEAN Border Management Cooperation Roadmap by UNODC is another example of formulation through a member state. Thailand, during its 2019 ASEAN chairmanship, identified the issue area

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as a priority and, with UNODC support, pushed the draft policy through several instances until its eventual adoption by the SOMTC in 2020 (UNODC, 2021). 6.2.3

Implementation

Unlike in the Economic Community, ASEAN is not seen as particularly strong on policy implementation in the APSC. External actors’ frustration with ASEAN’s tendency to draft agendas for further drafting activities is abundant. Still, there are some examples of ASEAN conducting more substantial implementation activities under the APSC, under the various action plans that have been formulated in the policy area. Recent reforms on rules-based ASEAN have also seemingly resulted in more interest in regional-level monitoring of progress in the APSC, which should result in more emphasis on policy implementation. Under these circumstances, it is possible to identify some dialogue partner support to implementation. As in the AEC, the Secretariat is sidelined in the provision of implementation support. As in formulation, the opacity of the APSC makes it difficult to provide a comprehensive picture of dialogue partner agency at this stage. As a result, only one type of agency can clearly be identified: support at the national level for the implementation of regional-level policies. Following the formulation of policies in sectoral bodies, national-level implementation can be supported by dialogue partners. Frequently, such activities take the shape of training or the follow-up implementation of national-level policies or action plans (Interview 16; Interview 51). Examples of such trainings include the EU-ASEAN Migration and Border Management Programme, which provided support to police in ASEAN member states through the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) in two phases (ASEAN Secretariat, 2015). In its first phase, the project was carried out with only Cambodia and Vietnam, which suggests that implementation support by dialogue partner in the APSC sometimes also creates competition between member states, as mentioned in the previous section. Due to the sensitivity of the implementation of some activities under the APSC, dialogue partner support at this stage frequently sidelines ASEAN altogether, with partners instead carrying out activities directly with individual member states. As in the AEC, external actors design such projects when they fail to receive CPR approval or if they want to

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avoid undergoing ASEAN’s complicated approval procedures in the first place. The practice appears to be more prevalent in the APSC than in the AEC. Actors carrying out such projects include the EU, which has conducted activities related to its maritime security agenda with Vietnam (Interview 5), Germany, which has conducted trainings on the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea with Indonesia (Interview 7), and the US, which has conducted activities on counterterrorism with Indonesia (Interview 51). 6.2.4

Monitoring

ASEAN remains an organization with relatively weak monitoring procedures in the Political-Security Community, connected to the reluctance of member states to allow judgment of their national-level activities. While the trend of building analytical capacity has also affected ASEAN and the Secretariat in the APSC, it is not as apparent as in the AEC. Monitoring in the APSC remains largely shielded from external influence. The monitoring functions that have recently been taken up by ASEC also see little to no support by dialogue partners. Again, owing to the opacity of the policy area, dialogue partner agency is not fully transparent in the APSC. As such, it is also difficult to identify distinctive ways of supporting monitoring. To a limited degree, dialogue partners provide the same types of support as under the AEC: (1) monitoring support to the sectoral bodies; and (2) support to the establishment of monitoring systems by the Secretariat. Dialogue partners support monitoring by sectoral bodies to a limited degree. This is done through studies and evaluation reports. It is hard to gauge the frequency of this type of agency, since these analyses are rarely public. The Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund website lists three evaluation documents on counterterrorism in 2020 and 2021 (Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund, 2022a) and three on post-conflict peacebuilding and mine action (Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund, 2022b). Due to the fund’s way of working, these studies are likely to be based on requests by the sectoral bodies. Despite the much more restrained role of the Secretariat in APSC monitoring, dialogue partners do provide a small amount of support to the development of Secretariat monitoring capacities. The primary beneficiaries of this support are the Legal Services and Agreements Division in the Community Affairs pillar, rather than the APSC monitoring division

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(Interview 6; Interview 9). While the LSAD technically lies outside of the APSC, its role in the implementation of the measures connected to rulesbased ASEAN put part of its mandate in the realm of the Political-Security Community. The US’s PROGRESS project has supported LSAD through the hiring of consultants to help elaborate what they call the practical reporting system, which seeks to identify agreement implementation gaps in ASEAN member states (Interview 16; Interview 25). Additional support has been provided by a German project as well as ARISE+ (Interview 44; Interview 9). One outcome of partner support to LSAD is an online agreement database, in which ratification of ASEAN agreements is publicly visible. The monitoring systems developed by LSAD explicitly aim to identify compliance gaps and capacity-building needs in member states. Identifying these gaps should enable the Secretariat and the member states to identify concrete implementation needs and to recommend potential remedies offered by external actors (Interview 25). Should member states opt to further strengthen the role of the LSAD, this may augur more significant dialogue partner support, as in the APSC. A variety of partners, including the US and Germany, have signaled their willingness to provide additional resources to the department (Interview 6; Interview 9).

6.3

Summary

Constrained by ASEAN member states’ partner management mechanisms and the continued relative absence of substantial policies under the APSC, dialogue partners exhibit a significantly lower amount of agency in the policy area compared to the AEC. Dialogue partners largely provide intergovernmental policy-making support, related to the needs of sectoral bodies. The external actors in ASEAN’s environment provide similar types of support in similar policy areas, which is a result of the lower overall number of sectoral bodies as well as overlap in dialogue partner areas of interest. This results in overlap in support, with multiple dialogue partners often engaged with the same body, on similar themes. Over the course of the policy cycle, dialogue partner agency appears to diminish along the way. While dialogue partners make substantial contributions to agenda setting and formulation, there is significantly less agency at the implementation and monitoring stages. It must be said that the opacity of the APSC makes it difficult to draw a complete picture

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of dialogue partner support and that there is a high likeliness of agency occurring outside the confines of ASEAN institutions. The role of the Secretariat in managing external support under the APSC remains small to non-existent, although there have been some projects in which ASEC has played a role. In terms of trends, there appear to be some very nascent developments towards a more significant involvement of dialogue partners in monitoring. The development of analytical capacity of the Secretariat may lead to more support in this area.

References ASEAN Secretariat. (2015). EU, ASEAN Launch 2nd Phase of Border Management Programme. https://asean.org/eu-asean-launch-2nd-phase-of-bordermanagement-programme/ ASEAN Secretariat. (2017a). Bohol Trafficking in Persons Work Plan 2017–2020. Retrieved from ASEAN Secretariat website: https://asean.org/storage/ 2012/05/Final-Version-of-Bohol-TIP-Work-Plan-2017a-2020_13Nov2017. pdf ASEAN Secretariat. (2017b). Joint ADMM, ADMM-Plus, and ARF Calendar. https://admm.asean.org/index.php/events/joint-admm-admm-plus-and-arfcalendar.html ASEAN Secretariat. (2018). The ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) Work Plan 2016–2020. https://asean.org/storage/2019/01/37.-December-2018-TheASEAN-Commission-on-the-Promotion-and-Protection-of-the-Rights-ofWomen-and-Children-ACWC-Work-Plan-2016-2020.pdf ASEAN Secretariat. (2019). AMMTC/SOMTC/DGICM Joint Calendar 2019. https://asean.org/storage/2012/05/AMMTC-SOMTC-DGICM-Joint-Cal endar-2018-as-of-8-January-2019.pdf Government of Australia. (2019a). ASEAN-Australia Relations. https://aseana ustralia.pmc.gov.au/asean-australia/relations.html Government of Australia. (2019b). Australia’s ASEAN and Mekong Program. https://dfat.gov.au/geo/east-asia/development-assistance/Documents/ asean-and-mekong-aid-program-brochure.pdf Haacke, J. (2003). Asean’s Diplomatic and Security Culture: Origins, Development and Prospects. Routledge. Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. (2022a). Publications on Counter Terrorism. https://jaif.asean.org/publications/?sort_by=&publication_category=&pub lication_tag=51

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Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. (2022b). Publications on Post-Conflict Peace Building. https://jaif.asean.org/publications/?sort_by=&publication_ category=&publication_tag=61 Müller, L. M. (2021). Pre-Eminent or Subordinate? An Organisational Environment Perspective on the EU’s Security Cooperation with ASEAN and ECOWAS. European Review of International Studies, 8(3), 413–442. https://doi.org/10.1163/21967415-08030002 Pacific Forum. (2019). United States-ASEAN Partnership Forum. Official Program. READI-HRF. (2015). AICHR-SOMTC Joint Workshop on Human Rights-Based Approach to Combat Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Indonesia. http://readi.asean.org/events/aichr-somtc-joint-workshophuman-rights-based-approach-combat-trafficking-persons-especially-womenchildren-yogyakarta-joint-funding-us-progress-2/ READI-HRF. (2016). AICHR-SOMTC Consultation on Human Rights-Based Approach to the Implementation of ACTIP and APA. http://readi.asean. org/events/aichr-somtc-consultation-human-rights-based-approach-implem entation-actip-apa/ UNODC. (2021). ASEAN Adopts a Ground-Breaking Agreement on Border Management. https://www.unodc.org/roseap/2021/10/asean-border-man agement/story.html USAID. (2016). U.S. Efforts to Address Trafficking in Persons and Irregular Migration in East Asia and the Pacific Fact Sheet Asia Regional U.S. Agency for International Development. https://www.usaid.gov/asia-regional/fact-she ets/us-efforts-address-trafficking-persons-and-irregular-migration-east US Mission to ASEAN. (2017a). Consultation on a Rules-Based ASEAN: Legal Instruments and Their Implementation. https://asean.usmission.gov/consul tation-rules-based-asean-legal-instruments-implementation/ US Mission to ASEAN. (2017b). Workshop to Present the Study on “Victims Restitution System in Thailand”. https://asean.usmission.gov/workshop-presentstudy-victims-restitution-system-thailand/ US Mission to ASEAN. (2018a). ACWC Regional Guidelines and Procedures to Address the Needs of TIP Victims. https://asean.usmission.gov/acwc-regionalguidelines-procedures-address-needs-tip-victims/ US Mission to ASEAN. (2018b). ASEAN-United States Leaders’ Statement on Cybersecurity Cooperation. https://asean.usmission.gov/asean-united-sta tes-leaders-statement-on-cybersecurity-cooperation/

CHAPTER 7

Conclusion: Entangled Agency—Member States, Secretariat, Dialogue Partners, and Collaborative Policy Making

Across its chapters, this book asked the question to which degree agency by the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN’s dialogue partners occurs in the shadow of the member states. Throughout the analysis, three research questions built upon one another: (1) How do member states engage in policy making with their Secretariat and the dialogue partners? (2) How does the Secretariat engage in policy making with member states and dialogue partners? (3) How do dialogue partners engage in policy making with member states and the Secretariat? Following the assessment of member state agency in Chapter 2, Secretariat agency in Chapters 3 and 5, and dialogue partner agency in Chapters 4 and 6, conclusions can be drawn about the overall meaning of multi-actor agency in the ASEAN economic and political-security communities. Regarding the agency of member states, Chapter 2 showed continuous progress in the interactions between member states, the Secretariat, and dialogue partners. Over the years, there has been a steady expansion of mandate, a rethinking of organizational design, and gradual progress in interaction practices. Member states continue to cast a shadow over the Secretariat, but that shadow appears to be getting smaller. There are subtle but fundamental changes underway affecting the role of the Secretariat and its contribution to regional policy making. Some institutional innovations of the charter, such as the introduction of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, have contributed to the assertion of member © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2_7

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state control, marginalizing the Secretariat. Others, such as the introduction of sectoral work plans, have led to a stronger involvement of the Secretariat in policy-making processes. There appear to be significant differences in member state-Secretariat interactions between the economic and the political-security parts of the organization. Regarding member state-dialogue partner relations, similar trends to those affecting Secretariat interactions are apparent. Post-ASEAN-Charter, the member states have introduced several mechanisms to manage their partnerships. Member states continue to cast a shadow here, permitting some forms of dialogue partner engagement and precluding others. Secretariat agency is apparent in both the ASEAN Economic as well as the Political-Security Community, although there are significant differences between the two policy areas. In the AEC, the Secretariat is primarily active at the formulation and monitoring stages. At the margins, an encroachment of ASEC into agenda setting may also be observed. ASEAN member states view the economic pillar as an area where technical expertise is needed. In recent years, there has been a push for analytical capacity within the economic divisions with the aim of empowering ASEC to provide more substance to the process as opposed to acting only as a conduit. In the APSC, the Secretariat is somewhat active in formulation and monitoring, although the role of the organization and its impact must not be overstated. Monitoring mechanisms are currently under development, which is why some changes may yet occur in this area. Until then, the Secretariat fulfills its archetypal role of the Involved Networker, providing primarily facilitative support to a variety of intergovernmental bodies. Nonetheless, there appear to be some rare instances where ASEC bureaucrats play minor roles in policy making through the provision of discussion and analysis papers to member state bodies at the formulation stage. Regarding the agency of the dialogue partners, the situation appears similar to that of the Secretariat, suggesting there are some parallels when it comes to agency in the shadow of the member states. Dialogue partners largely provide intergovernmental policy-making support, related to the needs of sectoral bodies. In the AEC, dialogue partners lend support throughout the policy cycle, including in agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and monitoring. Particularly notable is the depth of their engagement at the formulation and monitoring stages. Formulation sees a large number of studies and other inputs provided by partners. Monitoring, meanwhile, is notable for dialogue partner support to the

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Secretariat. Remarkable dynamics between dialogue partners and ASEAN member states are apparent at the formulation and implementation stage, where external actors occasionally stoke competition between ASEAN member states in order to propel formulation and implementation. In the APSC, dialogue partners exhibit a significantly lower amount of agency. Over the course of the policy cycle, dialogue partner agency appears to diminish along the way. While dialogue partners make substantial contributions to agenda setting and formulation, there is significantly less agency at the implementation and monitoring stages (Fig. 7.1). During the investigation of member state, Secretariat, and dialogue partner agency, it became clear that each actor’s agency cannot be seen independently from the others. ASEAN’s member state agency throughout the policy-making process is typically seen as monolithic, with little influence from dialogue partners or the Secretariat. In reality, member states allow a surprising degree of policy-making agency by both

ASEAN Economic Community

ASEAN Political Security Community

Agenda Setting

Member States

ASEC

Dialogue Partners

Member States

ASEC

Dialogue Partners

Formulation

Member States

ASEC

Dialogue Partners

Member States

ASEC

Dialogue Partners

Decision Making

Member States

Implementation

Member States

Monitoring

Member States

Member States

ASEC

Dialogue Partners

Member States

Dialogue Partners

Member States

ASEC

Fig. 7.1 Presence of agency by ASEAN member states, Secretariat, and dialogue partners in the AEC and the APSC

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the Secretariat and dialogue partners. While they do retain control of both entities, ensuring that the Secretariat and external actors support intergovernmental processes, they have opened ASEAN to allow for policy-making contributions by a wide array of stakeholders. From the investigation of agency by the three entities, it appears clear that agency is not a unidirectional activity, but rather an interrelated process implicating various actors at various stages of policy making. One way to label this phenomenon is entangled agency.

7.1 Understanding Entangled Agency---Implications for Future Research on and Engagement with ASEAN The ambition behind this research was to uncover practical lessons about how policy is made within ASEAN and what roles the various actors play in this process. Ideally, this knowledge can be used to arrive at a better understanding of ASEAN as an organization. What then can be drawn from the ideas presented throughout this book and how should it affect our understanding of ASEAN as an organization, its policymaking processes, and its external relationships? In the following, I will first provide an overview over the main insights on the entities investigated before moving on to an assessment of the theoretical and empirical novelty of the phenomenon of entangled agency. In the case of ASEAN’s member states, the analysis—in line with expectations—showed that they retain a significant degree of control over both the Secretariat as well as their dialogue partnerships. Over time, various developments have both marginalized as well as created space for Secretariat agency. Over time, the institution’s role as the Involved Networker has become solidified, although member states appear to be supportive of a larger Secretariat role. In recent years, ASEAN has made significant progress in its policy-making norms and methods, particularly in the ASEAN Economic Community, countering common tropes of ASEAN as a talk shop. The Political-Security Community, however, has seen fewer innovations and substantial policies produced. Innovations have been driven by external shocks, but also by internal discussions within ASEAN, some driven by Secretariat staff, others by member states. In the case of member state-dialogue partner relations, it appears that member states have pushed for more control over ASEAN’s engagement

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with such counterparts, at the detriment of the Secretariat. Surprisingly, it does not appear that dialogue partners’ influence has waned as a result. Instead, it appears as if member states have recognized the potential of dialogue partners to contribute to policy-making processes, leveraging their relationship to mobilize resources from them. In the case of the ASEAN Secretariat, a major insight of this book has been its significant degree of agency. The Secretariat is particularly active in the ASEAN Economic Community, which is, not by coincidence, also the policy area where member states have pushed for reforms the most. Here, the Secretariat is notable for its role in policy formulation as well as in monitoring. In the Political-Security Community, on the other hand, the Secretariat is relegated to a marginal role, mostly serving as a facilitator to intergovernmental processes, although nascent reforms are also apparent. Policy formulation and monitoring remain the areas of involvement, although to a much lesser degree than in the case of the AEC. This goes hand-in-hand with the more conservative nature of the APSC, which to a large degree still relies on the traditional ASEAN practices of non-intervention, quiet diplomacy, and face-saving. Taken together, the significant policy-making agency by the Secretariat in both pillars should lead to a reassessment of the bureaucracy’s role within ASEAN, as suggested by other studies (Reinalda, 2012; Wong, 2014). While ASEC continues to play a ceremonial role as suggested by Nair (2015), the organization is also a major player in policy making in various guises, exhibiting significantly more agency than any formal mandate would suggest. Furthermore, certain trends suggest a potentially much more significant role for the Secretariat in the near future. Member states’ push for analytical capacity, both in the AEC as well as the APSC, will very likely lead to a more capable, empowered, and confident Secretariat. The interplay between the Secretariat and the member states highlights the value of analyzing entangled agency in ASEAN policy making. The case of ASEAN’s dialogue partners is perhaps the area where the implications of this study are most apparent. As Chapters 4 and 6 have shown, external actors exhibit significant agency by providing intergovernmental policy-making support, primarily directed at ASEAN’s sectoral bodies, but occasionally also at the Secretariat. This support results from the dynamics of the member state-Secretariat relations, with member states asserting control over external partnerships, precluding support to the Secretariat, and ensuring that it is channeled to the sectoral bodies

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instead. This is where entangled agency most clearly comes into view. External actors have an expressed interest in supporting ASEAN and its Secretariat in particular. As a part of the ASEAN Charter reforms, however, ASEAN member states have set up mechanisms to control the provision of external support to the organization, channeling it into its intergovernmental bodies. Facilitated by an external environment characterized by a high number of partners, the member states have been successful in managing support in a way that makes it useful to the member state bodies rather than the Secretariat. At the same time, this has permitted external actors’ entry into ASEAN’s policy-making bodies, which is why this type of support is labeled policy-making support. Paradoxically, the proximity of external actors to the policy-making member state-led sectoral bodies of ASEAN, an institutional design choice aimed at ensuring member state sovereignty over the Secretariat, has led to external partners becoming more directly involved in regional policy making. How then should entangled agency by member states, the Secretariat, and the dialogue partners influence our understanding of ASEAN as an entity? At the most basic level, it should be understood that analyses of policy making within ASEAN that focus on a single entity carry only limited explanatory power. While it would be fair to ignore Secretariat agency in cases where ASEC is clearly marginalized, for instance, in agenda setting under the APSC, omitting agency by dialogue partners from a potential analysis may lead to misleading results. Table 7.1 shows that multiple entities are present at the majority of policy-making stages in both ASEAN communities. It is also clear that member states and dialogue partners need to be seen as heterogeneous collectives of actors, influencing one another. As the previous chapter have shown, it is important that the diversity in member state views on issues within ASEAN is recognized. Furthermore, studies need to be more cognizant of the interplay in the larger community of dialogue partners and how this affects individual dialogue partner strategies. Lastly, the facilitative role of the Secretariat and its function as a mediator or transmission belt for member state-dialogue partner relations should make scholars aware of the grey area between the view of the Secretariat as a mostly ceremonial actor (Nair, 2015) and the view of the Secretariat as a substantial player. Looking at ASEC’s role in the process of entangled agency suggests that the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

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External actors collaborating with ASEAN are already largely aware of these facts. Still, more attention could be paid by them to multiactor interplay, particularly in the case of the overlapping dialogues in the APSC. The recent inclusion of additional dialogue and sectoral partners by ASEAN is sure to lead to an even more complex situation, both in the AEC and the APSC.

7.2 Beyond ASEAN---Regionalism in the Global South as an Open System ASEAN is one of the world’s premier regional organizations, and as such, we would expect reassessments of the organization to have repercussions for research and practice beyond ASEAN itself. The fact that there is evidence of agency by other entities in the shadow of the member states in an organization as intergovernmental as ASEAN suggests that similar dynamics may be at play in other ROs across the world. While many studies on ASEAN emphasize ASEAN’s uniqueness (Acharya, 2009; Rüland, 2017), the field of comparative regionalism has shown that this does not need to preclude comparison. I believe that the underlying features of this analysis are universal enough to allow for a transfer to similar cases. It is fair to assume that member state agency and delegation choices across regional organizations have similar impacts on Secretariat and external partner agency. As I showed in another publication on the West African ECOWAS (Müller, 2022), some regional bureaucracies are significantly more empowered than the ASEAN Secretariat. The fact that many regional organizations, particularly on the African continent, possess empowered, partly autonomous, and relatively well-funded bureaucracies suggests that the agency of such institutions deserves significantly more attention. Dialogue partner agency, likewise, is not an ASEAN-exclusive phenomenon, with other regions exhibiting similar dynamics in the external relations of regional organizations. Despite an increased interest in bureaucracies and external partners as self-directed actors, these analyses should not neglect the agency of member states in the process. A first suggestion for future research concerns member-stateSecretariat interactions in ROs. Although this is not an innovative statement as far as the research on regional organizations goes, it bears repeating that member state delegation choices are crucial to our understanding of the agency of regional institutions. One shortcoming of many

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studies in this vein, however, is their formalistic perspective on delegation and mandates. As the analysis in Chapters 3 and 5 has shown, there is a considerable difference between formal mandates and de facto delegation and interaction practices. In addition, these practices differ across policy areas, despite similar treaty bases. This suggests, once more, that both indepth investigation of interaction practices between member states and bureaucracies as well as a distinction between policy areas are necessary. A second area for further research is the partner management systems of ROs. Too often, ROs are presented as passive recipients of external support. The case of ASEAN shows that member states are indeed capable of setting up systems to channel external support, and that these systems can be based on regionally idiosyncratic approaches, such as centrality and hedging. ASEAN’s system of external partner engagement is remarkable, due to the long history that most of its external relations look back on, as well as its well-established, well-functioning, and well-researched partner management mechanisms. Both formal management systems as well as interaction practices deserve attention. Other ROs may not have the same number of partners engaged as ASEAN, or coordination mechanisms may be weaker. It would be valuable to understand how this affects the agency of external actors vis-à-vis ROs in the Global South. As similar research shows (Müller, 2021), partner coordination is not as effective in all ROs. Dialogue partner agency vis-à-vis the Secretariat, that is, traditional institutional capacity building, appears to be another avenue for future research to explore, although it does not appear to be very significant in the case of ASEAN. Due to the relatively minor role the Secretariat plays in many policy-making processes, coupled with the assertiveness of member states, dialogue partners are not presented with many opportunities to engage directly with or provide support to the Secretariat. In cases where they are, for instance, in the case of AIMD, they take up the opportunity enthusiastically. This suggests that in the case of other ROs, where regional bureaucracies are more autonomous or more empowered, external partners may provide more substantial support to their development or functioning. This is certainly an avenue that should be explored further, in the spirit of past research on institutional support programs (Martin, 2009; Pietrangeli, 2009).

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References Acharya, A. (2009). Whose Ideas Matter? Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism. Cornell University Press. Martin, D. (2009). Toes in the Water: The ‘Makability’ of ASEAN and European Commission Support to Economic Integration in Southeast Asia Under APRIS. The EU and World Regionalism: The Makability of Regions in the 21st Century (pp. 83–100). Ashgate. Müller, L. M. (2021). Pre-eminent or Subordinate? An Organisational Environment Perspective on the EU’s Security Cooperation with ASEAN and Ecowas. European Review of International Studies, 8(3), 413–442. https://doi.org/ 10.1163/21967415-08030002 Müller, L. M. (2022). The Rise of a Regional Institution in Africa: Agency and Policy-formation within the ECOWAS Commission. Routledge Studies in African Politics and International Relations. Routledge. Nair, D. (2015). Saving the States’ Face: An Ethnography of the ASEAN Secretariat and Diplomatic Field in Jakarta. Thesis Submitted to the Department of International Relations of the London School of Economics. Pietrangeli, G. (2009). Supporting Regional Integration and Cooperation Worldwide: An Overview of the European Union Approach. In P. de Lombaerde & M. Schulz (Eds.), The EU and World Regionalism: The Makability of Regions in the 21st century (pp. 9–43). Ashgate. Reinalda, B. (2012). ASEAN as an Informal Organization. In J. E. Oestreich (Ed.), International Organizations as Self-directed Actors: A Framework for Analysis (pp. 221–240). Routledge. Rüland, J. (2017). The Indonesian Way: ASEAN, Europeanization, and Foreign Policy Debates in a New Democracy Studies in Asian Security. Wong, R. (2014). Creeping Supranationalism: The EU and ASEAN Experiences. In L. Brennan & P. Murray (Eds.), Drivers of Integration and Regionalism in Europe and Asia (pp. 235–251). Routledge.

Appendix

List of Interviewees Interview #

Organization

Position

Date

Location

Interview 1

Heinrich Böll Stiftung Nathan Incorporated Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit European External Action Service European External Action Service US Agency for International Development Embassy of Germany British Council Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit The Habibie Center

Country Director

01.02.2018

Yogyakarta

Chief of Party

13.02.2018

Jakarta

Advisor

13.02.2018

Jakarta

Diplomat

14.02.2018

Jakarta

Deputy Head of Mission Program Manager

14.02.2018

Jakarta

15.02.2018

Jakarta

Diplomat

16.02.2018

Jakarta

Project Leader Advisor

20.02.2018 21.02.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Research Associate

22.02.2018

Jakarta

Interview 2 Interview 3

Interview 4 Interview 5 Interview 6

Interview 7 Interview 8 Interview 9

Interview 10

(continued)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 L. M. Müller, In the Shadow of the Member States, Critical Studies of the Asia-Pacific, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9386-2

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APPENDIX

(continued) Interview #

Interview 11 Interview 12 Interview 13 Interview 14

Interview 15 Interview 16

Interview 17 Interview 18 Interview 19 Interview 20 Interview 21 Interview 22

Interview 23 Interview 24

Interview 25 Interview 26 Interview 27

Interview 28 Interview 29 Interview 30 Interview 31

Organization

Position

Date

Location

The Habibie Center Hanns Seidel Stiftung ASEAN Secretariat Friedrich Naumann Stiftung Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit ASEAN Secretariat Development Alternatives Incorporated E-READI Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Embassy of the US E-READI Embassy of Australia Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat US Agency for International Development ARISE+ ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Indian Mission to ASEAN

Head of Program

22.02.2018

Jakarta

Resident Representative Head of Division Country Director

22.02.2018

Jakarta

22.02.2018 23.02.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Senior Advisor

26.02.2018

Jakarta

Director Senior Advisor

27.02.2018 27.02.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Advisor Country Director

27.02.2018 28.02.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Diplomat Project Leader Diplomat

01.03.2018 02.03.2018 05.03.2018

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Advisor

05.03.2018

Jakarta

Advisor

05.03.2018

Jakarta

Country Director

07.03.2018

Jakarta

Senior Program Officer Technical Officer

07.03.2018

Jakarta

07.03.2018

Jakarta

Senior Officer Technical Officer Advisor

08.03.2018 09.03.2018 04.04.2018

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Team Leader Assistant Director Senior Officer Head of Division Diplomat

11.04.2018 11.04.2018 11.04.2018 12.04.2018 12.04.2018

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta (continued)

APPENDIX

181

(continued) Interview #

Organization

Position

Date

Location

Interview 32 Interview 33

ASEAN Secretariat Norwegian Delegation to ASEAN Nathan Incorporated ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Embassy of Germany ASEAN Secretariat UN Resident Coordinator’s Office E-READI Embassy of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN Japanese International Cooperation Agency Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ASEAN Secretariat ARISE+ ASEAN Secretariat European External Action Service Embassy of Germany Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs ASEAN Secretariat Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Assistant Director Ambassador to ASEAN

13.04.2018 13.04.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Former Senior Advisor Director Director Diplomat

30.04.2018

Jakarta

30.04.2018 30.04.2018 02.05.2018

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Assistant Director Liaison Officer to ASEAN

03.05.2018 04.05.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Advisor Senior Researcher

04.05.2018 07.05.2018

Jakarta Jakarta

Project Manager

08.05.2018

Jakarta

Director General

09.05.2018

Jakarta

Head of Division Senior Advisor Senior Officer Head of Cooperation Diplomat

09.05.2018 10.05.2018 11.05.2018 11.05.2018

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

13.02.2019

Jakarta

Diplomat

14.02.2019

Jakarta

Assistant Director Director General

15.02.2019 19.02.2019

Jakarta Jakarta

Diplomat

19.02.2019

Jakarta

Interview 34 Interview 35 Interview 36 Interview 37 Interview 38

Interview 39 Interview 40

Interview 41

Interview 42

Interview Interview Interview Interview

43 44 45 46

Interview 47 Interview 48

Interview 49 Interview 50

Interview 51

(continued)

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APPENDIX

(continued) Interview #

Organization

Position

Date

Location

Interview 52

Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Malaysia PR to ASEAN ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Embassy of Germany Indonesian PR to ASEAN

Diplomat

20.02.2019

Jakarta

Diplomat

21.02.2019

Jakarta

Assistant Director Senior Officer Diplomat

27.02.2019 27.02.2019 28.02.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Permanent Representative to ASEAN Diplomat

01.03.2019

Jakarta

01.03.2019

Jakarta

Senior Officer 05.03.2019 Head of Division 08.03.2019 Cluster Coordinator 11.03.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Assistant Director Assistant Director Assistant Director Assistant Director Director Senior Advisor

11.03.2019 11.03.2019 11.03.2019 12.03.2019 12.03.2019 15.03.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Assistant Director Assistant Director Assistant Director Chief of Party

15.03.2019 15.03.2019 18.03.2019 19.03.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Assistant Director Diplomat

19.03.2019 19.03.2019

Jakarta Jakarta

Head of Section

22.03.2019

Bangkok

Assistant Director Assistant Director Assistant Director Diplomat

04.04.2019 04.04.2019 04.04.2019 08.04.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Interview 53 Interview 54 Interview 55 Interview 56

Interview 57 Interview 58 Interview 59

Interview 60

Interview 61 Interview 62 Interview 63

Interview Interview Interview Interview

64 65 66 67

Interview 68 Interview 69 Interview 70

Interview Interview Interview Interview

71 72 73 74

Indonesian PR to ASEAN ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Development Alternatives Incorporated ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Nathan Incorporated ASEAN Secretariat Singapore PR to ASEAN Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat Philippines PR to ASEAN

(continued)

APPENDIX

183

(continued) Interview #

Interview Interview Interview Interview

75 76 77 78

Interview 79

Interview 80

Interview 81

Interview 82 Interview 83 Interview 84

Organization

Position

Date

Location

Philippines PR to ASEAN ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Secretariat ASEAN Center for Humanitarian Assistance Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Thai PR to ASEAN

Diplomat

08.04.2019

Jakarta

Senior Officer Assistant Director Assistant Director Former Executive Director

09.04.2019 09.04.2019 09.04.2019 09.04.2019

Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta Jakarta

Director

18.04.2019

Jakarta

Diplomat

18.04.2019

Jakarta

18.04.2019

Jakarta

18.04.2019

Jakarta

16.6.2015

Brussels

16.6.2015

Brussels

17.6.2015

Brussels

Permanent Representative to ASEAN Lao PR to ASEAN Permanent Representative to ASEAN European Policy Advisor Parliament European External Head of Section Action Service Group Interview