Institutional divergence and convergence in the Asia-Pacific? ASEAN in practice and in theory

This paper gives attention to the geopolitics related to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an alternative model of regionalism in theory and practice. Offering a rough periodization of ASEAN in IR theory, it considers interacting theoretical and empirical developments, and their geopolitics as one way to think about, first, ASEAN, its defining dynamics and processes of change, and, second, ASEAN's relationship to a larger IR theory literature defined by US preoccupations and the institutional trajectory of the European Union. Three periods are considered: a Cold War period, when ASEAN norms and practices developed relatively insulated from great power expectations and theorizing about ASEAN was minimal; the 1990s, when constructivist theorizing encouraged new thinking about alternative institutional models; and the 2000s, a period characterized by correlating great power pressures and a 'functional' turn in academic and theoretical debates about ASEAN. Special attention is given to the United States as a major, leading actor in both world politics and the institutionalization of international relations as a discipline, as well as the possibilities and constraints of institutional divergence in theory and practice.