Förderung der regionalen Identität des ASEAN durch interregionale Gespräche zwischen EU und ASEAN zur Errichtung einer strategischen Partnerschaft

Die Perspektive von Thailand als EU–ASEAN-Koordinator

Abstract

Regional identity-building has been described within the literature on the European Union (EU)–Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) relationship as a function of interregionalism. While this literature has commonly premised regional identity-building as the direct result of interregional interaction in the sense of region-to-region best practice-sharing and capacity-building, it has also recognized that there have been instances of EU–ASEAN interregional disagreement which have raised levels of regional self-awareness and identity indirectly through processes of self-and-othering. Prominent examples of this kind of ASEAN regional identity-building through interregional othering processes have been the EU–ASEAN dispute over human rights and Myanmar in the 1990s. Even though the official EU-ASEAN relationship has come a long way since then, Thailand’s recent experience as the coordinator of the official EU–ASEAN dialogue reveals that regional identity-building through interregionalism continues to build on processes of differentiation. Specifically, through Thailand’s experience in managing the EU–ASEAN Strategic Partnership talks, as part of its role as the Southeast Asian EU–ASEAN coordinator from 2015 until 2018, this article demonstrates the interplay of differentiation and identification processes within contemporary ASEAN regional identity-building and -affirmation.