Abstract
This paper develops an analytical framework to explain how regional organizations engage institutional strategies in regional role location process. It argues that ASEAN employed institutionalization as a role bargaining tool in relations with China and other great powers in ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus) between 2007 and 2019. The shifts in ASEAN approach to institutionalization were triggered by modifications in China’s role claims, yet the choice of particular institutional responses reflected ASEAN’s own role conception and expectations for appropriate role enactment for itself and for China. By manipulating the institutional processes of ADMM Plus ASEAN successfully sustained its foreign policy roles as a ‘central actor’ and ‘security promoter’ as well as discouraged China from consolidating the undesirable for ASEAN role of regional ‘co-leader’ within ADMM Plus.
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Rymarenko, M. Institutional strategies in regional role location process: ASEAN, China, and great power management in ADMM Plus. Int Polit 59, 577–596 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00317-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-021-00317-0