Abstract
The creation of parliamentary bodies for regional organisations such as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or Mercosur seems to be at odds with the intergovernmental logic on which these organisations rest. We approach this puzzle from the perspective of norm diffusion theory. In the article we argue that transnational legislative bodies in Southeast Asia and South America have been primarily established to retain the respective organisation's ‘cognitive prior’, which in both cases rests upon deeply entrenched corporatist norms and ideas. We test our theoretical claims by a comparative study on the emergence and evolution of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly and the Mercosur Parliament.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Although this is undisputable in the case of Mercosur, which was created in 1991, ASEAN, founded in 1967, may less easily be subsumed under the New Regionalism. Yet, the grouping has undergone profound reforms in the early 1990s explicitly strengthening the sovereignty and soft law-based cooperation format typical for the New Regionalism.
The subsequent paragraphs draw from Rüland (2012).
During fieldwork, the authors had access to the archives of The Jakarta Post, Kompas, and The Straits Times. The Mercosur part builds on a large number of press articles on the regional organisation, which have been published online by the principal newspapers of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay.
Currently, only Indonesia is rated by Freedom House as a full-fledged democracy.
See AIPA Statute, http://www.aipasecretariat.org/about/statutes/ (accessed 19 September, 2010).
Personal interview by one of the authors, 18 August, 2010.
See http://www.aipasecretariat.org/about/background-history/the-renaming-of-aipo-to-aipa/ (accessed 19 September, 2010).
See http://www.aipasecretariat.org/reports/aipa-caucus-reports/second-aipa-caucus-report/ (accessed 19 September, 2010).
Bernama, 23 August, 2007, http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news_lite.php?id=280881 (accessed 12 September, 2010).
For a comprehensive explanation of ASEAN as an isomorphic organisation, see Jetschke (2009).
Malaysian Business Times (5 September, 1977).
Far Eastern Economic Review (27 December, 1974): 22–23.
The Straits Times (22 August, 1975): 11.
Business Times Singapore (9 July, 1977).
The Straits Times (6 February, 1978).
See ‘European Parliament Fact Sheets’, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/factsheets/6_3_13_en.htm (accessed 15 May 2011). See also The Straits Times (14 October, 1975): 12.
For hints in this direction, see AIPO Central Office (1985: 34). See also Business Times (29 April, 1978). That the European Parliament was an object of study is confirmed in AIPO Permanent Secretariat (1993).
Foreign Affairs Malaysia 10: 141.
The Straits Times (8 July, 1979): 10.
Malaysia Business Times (17 August, 1978).
Authors’ notes, 7 September, 2007.
‘BMBF Academic and Policy Roundtable: How East and Southeast Asia Cope with the Global Economic and Financial Crisis’, Berlin, 27 January, 2012.
Malaysia Business Times (5 September, 1977).
ASEAN (1975); and AIPO Central Office (1985): 6, 21, 33.
The Straits Times (19 August, 1978): 14.
In particular, the former Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives, José de Venecia, had been a leading advocate of a European-type regional parliament. For further references to an ASEAN Parliament patterned after the European Parliament, see The Straits Times (17 June, 1982): 14 and (22 July, 1993): 14.
For Indonesia, see The Jakarta Post (4 October, 2005).
Mercosur's foundational treaty and the subsequent protocols are available from the organisation's website, http://www.mercosur.org.uy (accessed 11 August, 2012).
CPC, Res. No. 2/97.
CMC, Dec. No. 23/05, Protocolo Constitutivo del Parlamento del Mercosur.
Throughout this interim period Uruguay and Paraguay retain 18 seats each, whereas Argentina holds 26 and Brazil 37 seats.
Political Agreement for the Consolidation of Mercosur and Corresponding Propositions; see http://www.parlamentodelmercosur.org/innovaportal/file/3029/1/Acuerdo%20Pol%EDtico.pdf (accessed 4 February, 2011). The agreement was approved in October, 2010 by CMC, Dec. No. 28/10.
See http://www.parlamentodelmercosur.org (accessed 11 August, 2012).
See http://www.observatoriomercosur.org.uy/libro/experiencia_de_la_comision_palamentaria_conjunta_del_mercosur_7.php (accessed 21 May, 2011).
CPC, Dec. S/N 96, Declaración de Florianopolis, 29–31 October, 1996, Reunión de Mesa Ejecutiva (creación de una Asamblea de Parlamentarios del MERCOSUR), in Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Comisión Parlamentaria Conjunta del Mercosur (2004): 59–60.
On the role of national parliaments in Latin America's presidential democracies see Krumwiede and Nolte (2000). President Lugo was impeached by the Paraguayan Congress for other reasons in June 2012. Because of the constitutionally doubtful procedure, Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay considered Lugo's removal as a coup d’état and temporarily suspended Paraguay's membership in the organisation. Shortly thereafter they admitted Venezuela as a full member of the organisation.
References
Acharya, Amitav (2003) ‘Democratisation and the Prospects for Participatory Regionalism’, Third World Quarterly 24 (2): 375–90.
Acharya, Amitav (2009) Whose Ideas Matter: Agency and Power in Asian Regionalism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Acharya, Amitav (2011) ‘Dialogue and Discovery: In Search of International Relations Theories beyond the West’, Millennium 39 (3): 619–637.
Acharya, Amitav and Barry Buzan (2007) ‘Conclusion: On the Possibility of a Non-Western IR Theory in Asia’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7 (3): 427–38.
AIPO Central Office (1985) 11 Years ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization, Collection of the Joint Communiqués 1975-1985, Jakarta: AIPO Central Office.
AIPO Permanent Secretariat (1993) ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization: ASEAN Parliament: The Study of Merit and Demerit of the Establishment of ASEAN Parliament Doc. 14GA/93-PM/SD-0-6, Jakarta: AIPO Permanent Secretariat.
Anderson, Benedict R.O.G. (1972) ‘The Idea of Power in Javanese Culture’, in Claire Holt, ed., Culture and Politics in Indonesia, 1–70, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
ASEAN (1975) Report of the ASEAN Parliamentary Meeting, 8-11 January, Jakarta: ASEAN.
ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization (2007) ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization, 30th Anniversary AIPO, Jakarta: ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization.
Barnett, Michael and Raymond Duvall (2005) ‘Power in International Politics’, International Organization 59 (1): 39–77.
Bourchier, David (1999) ‘Positivism and Romanticism in Indonesian Legal Thought’, in Timothy Lindsey, ed., Indonesia: Law and Society, 186–96, Sydney: The Federation Press.
Caetano, Gerardo (2006) Parlamento Regional y Sociedad Civil en el Proceso de integración. Una nueva oportunidad para ‘otro’ Mercosur? Montevideo: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Chong, Alan (2007) ‘Southeast Asia: Theory between Modernization and Tradition’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 7 (3): 391–25.
Cohen, John M. and Norman T. Uphoff (1980) ‘Participation's Place in Rural Development: Seeking Clarity through Specificity’, World Development 8 (2): 213–35.
Collins, Alan (2008) ‘A People-oriented ASEAN: A Door Ajar or Closed for Civil Society Organizations?’ Contemporary Southeast Asia 30 (2): 313–331.
De Lombaerde, Philippe (2011) ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in Comparative Regionalism: A Comment on Sbragia’, Journal of Common Market Studies 49 (3): 675–81.
De Lombaerde, Philippe, Fredrik Söderbaum, Luk van Langenhove and Francis Baert (2010) ‘The Problem of Comparison in Comparative Regionalism’, Review of International Studies 36 (3): 731–53.
DiMaggio, Paul J. and Walter W. Powell (1983) ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional Isomorphism and Collective Rationality in Organizational Fields’, American Sociological Review 48 (2): 147–60.
Dreyzin de Klor, Adriana (2004) ‘La necesidad de un Parlamento para el Mercosur’, in Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Comisión Parlamentaria Conjunta del Mercosur, eds, Hacia el Parlamento del Mercosur, 23–39, Montevideo: Mastergraf.
Dri, Clarissa (2010) ‘Limits of the Institutional Mimesis of the European Union: The Case of the Mercosur Parliament’, Latin American Policy 1 (1): 52–74.
Drummond, Maria Claudia (2003) ‘The Evolution of the Competence and Functions of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Mercosur’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation 23 (1): 233–51.
Fajar, Nugraha (2011) ‘Indonesia-AIPA Teken Perjanjian, http://international.okezone.com/read/2010/09/15/18/372425/indonesia-aipa-teken-perjanjian, (accessed 29 March, 2011).
Gardini, Gian Luca (2010) ‘Executive-legislature Relations in Foreign Policy: A Case Study in Incipient Regional Integration’, Bulletin of Latin American Research 29 (2): 224–37.
Grugel, Jean (2006) ‘Regionalist Governance and Transnational Collective Action in Latin America’, Economy and Society 35 (2): 209–31.
Habegger, Beat (2010) ‘Democratic Accountability of International Organizations: Parliamentary Control within the Council of Europe and the OSCE and the Prospects for the United Nations’, Cooperation and Conflict 45 (2): 186–04.
Hagopian, Frances (1998) ‘Democracy and Political Representation in Latin America in the 1990s: Pause, Reorganization, or Decline?’, in Felipe Agüero and Jeffrey Stark, eds, Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America, 99–43, Miami, FL: North-South Center Press.
He, Kai (2008) ‘Institutional Balancing and International Relations Theory: Economic Interdependence and Balance of Power Strategies’, European Journal of International Relations 14 (3): 379–04.
Jetschke, Anja (2009) ‘Institutionalizing ASEAN: Celebrating Europe through Network Governance’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 22 (3): 407–26.
Jetschke, Anja (2010) Human Rights and State Security: Indonesia and the Philippines, Philadelphia: Pennsylvania University Press.
Jones, Lee (2009) ‘Democratization and Foreign Policy in Southeast Asia: The Case of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 22 (3): 387–06.
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and Comisión Parlamentaria Conjunta del Mercosur, eds (2004) Hacia el Parlamento del Mercosur, Montevideo: Mastergraf.
Koremenos, Barbara, Charles Lipson and Duncan Snidal (2001) ‘The Rational Design of International Institutions’, International Organization 55 (4): 761–99.
Kraft-Kasack, Christiane (2008) ‘Transnational Parliamentary Assemblies: A Remedy for the Democratic Deficit of International Governance?’ West European Politics 31 (3): 534–57.
Krumwiede, Heinrich-W. and Detlef Nolte (2000) Die Rolle der Parlamente in den Präsidialdemokratien Lateinamerikas, Hamburg: Institut für Iberoamerika-Kunde.
Malamud, Andrés (2005) ‘Presidential Diplomacy and the Institutional Underpinnings of MERCOSUR: An Empirical Examination’, Latin American Research Review 40 (1): 138–64.
Malloy, James M., ed. (1977) Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Marschall, Stefan (2005) Transnationale Repräsentation in Parlamentarischen Versammlungen: Parlamentarismus und Demokratie jenseits des Nationalstaates, Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Meyer, John W. and Brian Rowan (1977) ‘Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony’, American Journal of Sociology 83 (2): 340–63.
Narine, Shaun (2008) ‘Forty Years of ASEAN: A Historical Review’, The Pacific Review 21 (4): 411–29.
O’Donnell, Guillermo (1994) ‘Delegative Democracy?’ Journal of Democracy 5 (1): 55–69.
Oxhorn, Philip D. (1998) ‘Is the Century of Corporatism Over? Neoliberalism and the Rise of Neopluralism’, in Philip D. Oxhorn and Graciela Ducatenzeiler, eds, What Kind of Democracy? What Kind of Market? 195–7, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Pollack, Mark A. (1997) ‘Delegation, Agency, and Agenda-setting in the European Community’, International Organization 51 (1): 99–134.
Reeve, David (1985) Golkar of Indonesia. An Alternative to the Party System, New York: Oxford University Press.
Rittberger, Berthold (2000) ‘Impatient Legislators and New Issue-dimensions: A Critique of the Garrett-Tsebelis ‘Standard Version’ of Legislative Politics’, Journal of European Public Policy 7 (4): 554–75.
Rittberger, Berthold (2006) ‘No Integration without Representation!’ European Integration, Parliamentary Democracy, and Two Forgotten Communities’, Journal of European Public Policy 13 (8): 1211–1229.
Rittberger, Berthold (2009) ‘The Historical Origins of the EU's System of Representation’, Journal of European Public Policy 16 (1): 43–61.
Rittberger, Berthold and Frank Schimmelfennig (2008) ‘The Constitutionalization of the European Union’, Paper prepared for presentation at the workshop ‘Global Constitutionalism: Process and Substance’, 17–19 January, Kandersteg, Switzerland.
Rudolph, Lloyd I. and Susanne Hoeber-Rudolph (1967) The Modernity of Tradition: Political Development in India, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Rüland, Jürgen (2012) ‘The Limits of Democratizing Interest Representation: ASEAN's Regional Corporatism and Normative Challenges’, European Journal of International Relations Published online July 16, 2012, doi: 10.1177/1354066112445289.
Rüland, Jürgen and Maria-Gabriela Manea (2012) How Much an Actor and under Which Logics of Action? Parliament in the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces in Indonesia and Nigeria, Unpublished research report, Osnabrück: German Foundation of Peace Research.
Sánchez Bajo, Claudia (1999) ‘The EU and Merocsur: A Case of Inter-Regionalism’, Third World Quarterly 20 (5): 927–41.
Sbragia, Alberta (2010) ‘Comparative Regionalism: What Might it Be?’, Journal of Common Market Studies 46 (1): 29–49.
Schmitter, Philippe C. (1974) ‘Still the Century of Corporatism?’ Review of Politics 36 (1): 85–131.
Simanjuntak, Marsillam (1989) Unsur Hegelian dalam Pandangan Negara Integralistik, Depok: Universitas Indonesia, Fakultas Hukum.
Tay, Simon and May-Ann Lim (2009) ‘Assessment and Overview: ASEAN and Regional Involvement of Civil Society’, November, Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
The House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia and AIPO Secretariat (2003) ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization, Jakarta: Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat.
The House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia and AIPO Secretariat (2007) 30th Annivarsary Jakarta: AIPO.
Tsebelis, George (1994) ‘The Power of the European Parliament as a Conditional Agenda-Setter’, American Political Science Review 88 (1): 128–42.
Vázquez, Mariana (2001) ‘La Comisión Parlamentaria Conjunta del MERCOSUR. Reflexiones sobre su trayectoria político-institucional’, Paper prepared for delivery at the annual meeting of the Latin American Studies Association, 6–8 September, Washington DC.
Wiarda, Howard J. (1997) Corporatism and Comparative Politics: Another Great ‘Ism, Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
Acknowledgements
The ASEAN part of this study was made possible through the University of Singapore and University of Stanford Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Scholarship for Southeast Asia 2010 and a fellowship provided by The Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS History). The Mercosur part grew out of a Ph.D. project on the role of ideas in regional integration processes at the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute/University of Freiburg. Travel grants to present an earlier version of the article at the IPSA/ECPR Congress in São Paolo, Brazil, in February 2011 have been provided by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). This generous support is gratefully acknowledged. The article also benefited from discussions facilitated by the University of Freiburg's BMBF-supported Southeast Asian Studies Program. For thoughtful comments we thank Olivier Costa, Andrés Malamud, Nikolas Keßels and three anonymous reviewers. Last, but not least, we thank Alec Crutchley and Kate Reese for the excellent proofreading.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Rüland, J., Bechle, K. Defending state-centric regionalism through mimicry and localisation: regional parliamentary bodies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Mercosur. J Int Relat Dev 17, 61–88 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2013.3
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2013.3