IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/erp/scpoxx/p0037.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Rise and Decline of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM): Asymmetric Bilateralism and the Limitations of Interregionalism

Author

Listed:
  • David Camroux

Abstract

East Asia’s economic dynamism attracted the attention of European political leadersin the 1980s leading to the publication of Asian strategy papers by most Europeangovernments. However, it was the 1994 publication by the European Commission of itscommunication Towards a New Asia Strategy and the holding of the first Asia-EuropeMeeting (ASEM) in Bangkok in September 1996 that marked the first pan-Europeanattempt by the European Union to enter into a process of dialogue with a considerably lessinstitutionally structured Pan-Asian region. This article is an attempt to explore how tenyears of the ASEM process have failed to live up to initial expectations of interregionalismas one level in multi-layered global governance. This reflects, on the European side, thecontinuing tensions between intergovernmentalism and supranationalism as the modusoperandi of the European Union. On the Asian side, it demonstrates the lack of a coherentAsian region with which the EU can dialogue. The decision at the Helsinki Summit inSeptember 2006 to expand participation to all members of an enlarged European Union(with the addition of Rumania and Bulgaria) and in Asia, with the membership of India,Pakistan and Mongolia will probably accentuate this problem. Moreover, asymmetriesbetween a highly institutionalised European Union and an Asia devoid of strong institutionsare exacerbated by significant disparities in capacities and levels of political will amongstthe member states of both regions. Thus what is somewhat loosely labelled asinterregionalism can more carefully be defined as asymmetric bilateralism. Trappedbetween the Charybdis of multilateralism and the Scylla of bilateralism, interregionalism asa phenomenon engendered by globalization is at best a second-best option for politicalleaderships in both Europe and Asia. Thus, without a solid basis for development on bothsides the future of Euro-Asian interregionalism seems problematical at best.

Suggested Citation

  • David Camroux, 2004. "The Rise and Decline of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM): Asymmetric Bilateralism and the Limitations of Interregionalism," Les Cahiers européens de Sciences Po 6, Centre d'études européennes (CEE) at Sciences Po, Paris.
  • Handle: RePEc:erp:scpoxx:p0037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cee.sciences-po.fr/erpa/docs/wp_2004_6.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Higgott, 2000. "ASEM and the evolving global order," Global Economic Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 21-52.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Keywords

      international relations;

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:erp:scpoxx:p0037. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Linda AMRANI (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.cee.sciences-po.fr .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.