THE EU AND ASEAN: A RESILIENCE PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

As in the present international circumstances governance and regulation shifts to the regional level, conventional wisdom suggests that approaches of regional actors to the concept of resilience differ significantly. In reality, however, more similarity than difference is evident. To explain this puzzle, the authors turn to the narrative of resilience developed by the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as points of similarity and difference. Starting from an outline of the resilience narrative in the EU, the paper further proceeds to revealing its specific features from an ASEAN perspective to finally draw lines of comparison between those two approaches. While selected papers address approaches to resilience in the EU and ASEAN, none has gone beyond merely describing them separately. As a result, understanding of how resilience is interpreted in various regions, and how these interpretations may be synergized remains stagnant. More than that, assessments of resilience-related issues, if explored individually, may be misleading and incomplete. The paper eliminates this shortcoming and offers new insights into the conceptualization of the resilience narrative from a regional perspective by comparing two influential multilateral dialogue venues, namely, the EU and ASEAN. This factor accounts for the academic novelty of the research. The findings indicate unexpected commonalities between the EU’s and ASEAN’s interpretations of resilience across different lines of comparison. The authors argue that these points of synergy may be an important unifying component in relations between various regional actors, as a new wave of globalization appears and gains traction.