It's not the EU...

ASEAN continues to suffer from comparisons with the EU. Another example popped up in my academic database updates only today.

As with the international-versus-supranational question, it is acknowledged in theory that it is not fair to compare. Europe, after all, had enough cultural commonalities for some sense of unity to develop even while intra-continental wars were still happening; its economic development levels are generally much higher; the disparities between EU members are much less stark. And so on.

But still, these comparisons keep swirling around. Sometimes, they’re hidden comparisons. When ASEAN is described as “weakly institutionalized”, with “informal mechanisms”, the EU does not necessarily appear in the same sentence. But hanging there in the background is always the comparison – “weakly institutionalized” and “informal” compared to what? Presumably there are other bodies compared to which ASEAN might seem quite strongly institutionalized and quite formal?

Of course, ASEAN doesn’t always help itself in this regard, and comparisons with the EU often find their way into the pronouncements of its leaders and officials. (This is no doubt partly due to genuine admiration, but with substantial funding coming from Europe, it might also appear churlish to try to distance yourself too overtly from the acclaimed example of your big mentor.) And if negative comparisons with the EU can shock Southeast Asian states into not actually fighting over disputed issues – into adhering, in other words, to their own Treaty of Amity and Cooperation – then maybe they have their value. EU states still have plenty of quarrels, but they no longer reach for the guns to settle them.

But there’s also something profoundly pernicious about comparing these apples and pears. It bothers me that Southeast Asian students so routinely tell me what a wonderful institution the EU is, and how good its rules are, and how “European” its citizens feel. To them, the EU has arrived. It is everything it should be. And regardless of the different circumstances, it is what ASEAN should be, too.

I am absolutely not an EU-basher – the very reverse – but seeing this organization as the holy grail of all regional effort, against which ASEAN should be measured, is dangerous.

By ignoring differences, such comparisons provide fodder for unfair criticism that only makes it harder for ASEAN to generate the public momentum it needs in order to evolve.  

We know, for example, why Europe and Southeast Asia now work with very different conceptions of sovereignty. In Europe, the supreme disaster of two world wars was understood to stem from states, whose unrestrained desire to compete with each other brought them (and the rest of the world with them) into repeated conflict. The European desire for integration, and for a supranational body that can act over the head of states, is therefore a long-term experiment in curbing state power.

In Southeast Asia, the perception is entirely different. The supreme disaster of colonialism was understood to stem from the weakness of states, which left breaches that outsiders could muscle their way through. This lesson was reinforced by their Cold War experience. It is therefore harder to see “less state” as the answer to anything, and ideas of integration or supranationalism are the subject of much political conflict, even fear. While wanting the benefits of greater integration, few states are keen to sign away an independence that has only recently been won. While wanting the benefits of international standards, publics are also often unwilling to brook criticism from outside. ASEAN’s “non-interference” policy is not carried out to the letter, and a lot of “interference” actually does take place. But states – and publics – in Southeast Asia are reluctant to do away with this safety blanket. None of them can yet trust that future interference will not go too far, and deprive them – again – of their national right to self-government.

Slanted comparisons also close down possibilities. No-one thinks ASEAN is OK as it is. Ideas of sovereignty and community need to evolve, and slowly they are doing so. But by focusing on only one model for this process, by flooding the market of ideas with only one type of improvement possibility, we are making it more difficult for Southeast Asia’s states and peoples to come up with something that could eventually be much, much better than either ASEAN or the EU has yet become.