Institutional Dilemma: Quad and ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific Kei Koga

How is the future of the Indo-Pacific institutional arrange- ments envisioned by the Quad and ASEAN? Are they mutu-ally exclusive or compatible? How can the institutional com-petition between the Quad and ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific be avoided? I argue that the institutional competition between the Quad and ASEAN can be provisionally alleviated through strategic ambiguities about the institutional division of la-bor in the Indo-Pacific. However, such strategic ambiguities do not resolve normative inconsistencies between the Quad and ASEAN, which would probably trigger institutional com- petition in the future. To resolve such difficulties, both the Quad and ASEAN need to create a mechanism that clarifies their regional institutional division of labor.