Kilian Spandler | Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (original) (raw)

Papers by Kilian Spandler

Pacific Review, May 2, 2023

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governanc... more This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governance, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We argue that important insights into this issue can be gleaned by analyzing how ASEAN has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most existing research on ASEAN considers sovereignty an obstacle to effective regional governance without further interrogating it conceptually. Such a monolithic understanding fails to account for ASEAN's variegated response to the pandemic. To develop a fuller account of the relation between sovereignty and regional governance, we engage with scholarship on sovereignty that emphasizes its performative and contextual character, and develop a framework that distinguishes four different sovereignty scripts. Drawing on expert interviews and document analysis, we show that ASEAN's multifaceted Covid-19 response is a result of member states' parallel enactment of diverging and overlapping sovereignty scripts, which engender competing modes of governance. Our study shows that typical governance problems-institutional proliferation and incoherence as well as implementation gaps-can be understood as emerging from diverging imperatives for practicing sovereignty and statehood. We suggest that our framework can be tested in other policy fields and regional organizations beyond ASEAN.

Review of International Studies, 2021

This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemythe empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-useas resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or 'true' meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni-or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc enactment) and outline their varying effects on the legitimacy and effectiveness of global governance. Based on this discussion, the article points to the normative implications of a radically non-essentialist conception of norms and suggests harnessing the positive potential of norm ambiguity as an ethically desirable condition that promotes human diversity and the plurality of global life.

Pacific Review, 2023

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governanc... more This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governance, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We argue that important insights into this issue can be gleaned by analyzing how ASEAN has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most existing research on ASEAN considers sovereignty an obstacle to effective regional governance without further interrogating it conceptually. Such a monolithic understanding fails to account for ASEAN's variegated response to the pandemic. To develop a fuller account of the relation between sovereignty and regional governance, we engage with scholarship on sovereignty that emphasizes its performative and contextual character, and develop a framework that distinguishes four different sovereignty scripts. Drawing on expert interviews and document analysis, we show that ASEAN's multifaceted Covid-19 response is a result of member states' parallel enactment of diverging and overlapping sovereignty scripts, which engender competing modes of governance. Our study shows that typical governance problems-institutional proliferation and incoherence as well as implementation gaps-can be understood as emerging from diverging imperatives for practicing sovereignty and statehood. We suggest that our framework can be tested in other policy fields and regional organizations beyond ASEAN.

International Affairs, 2023

The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders... more The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders of multilateralism and the so-called liberal international order. Due to their frequent attacks on established international organizations (IOs), populists are often falsely portrayed as unilateralists. Our article addresses the apparent contradiction that populist leaders delegitimate certain IOs but actively legitimate others, and examines on what grounds they do so. We study speeches by three populist leaders from different continents: Viktor Orbán, Hugo Chávez and Rodrigo Duterte. The analysis shows that their (de)legitimation of IOs relies on representational claims, which critically interrogate on whose authority IOs speak, in whose interest they act, who they are made up of and what they stand for. Using the representational frames of popular sovereignty and popular identity, the three leaders have subverted conventional liberal arguments that legitimate IOs with regard to their performance or procedures. Based on these insights, we argue that instead of criticizing populists for being unilateralists (which they rarely are), stakeholders of established IOs should meet the populist challenge by engaging in more fundamental debates over the very purpose and mandate of IOs.

International Affairs, 2024

There is a widespread belief among scholars and policymakers that populism has fueled a unilatera... more There is a widespread belief among scholars and policymakers that populism has fueled a unilateralist backlash because of its emphasis on nationalism, popular sovereignty and identity politics. Although a few populist governments have indeed withdrawn from some international institutions, this 'disengagement hypothesis' needs to be scrutinized and unpacked. In this article, we develop a framework that distinguishes between four types of institutional disengagement-criticism, obstruction, extortion, and exit-and show that populist governments use them in a fluid and tactical way to navigate between the radical and pragmatic imperatives of populist politics. Our comparative case study of the Hungarian executive under Viktor Orbán (since 2010) and the Trump administration in the US (2017-2021) demonstrates that the two governments have disengaged from international institutions by combining various forms of disengagement, which only very rarely resulted in exit. The article thus deepens our understanding of the impact of populism on both individual institutions and the multilateral order more broadly, and helps policymakers develop strategies to counter the adverse effects of populism.

Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations

Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional fu... more Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional functionalist perspective, inadequate domestic-level responses to emergencies create a demand for scaled-up governance. This article offers an alternative interpretation of disaster cooperation in Southeast Asia. Drawing on theoretical insights from comparative regionalism and critical disaster studies, it argues that the raison d’être of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) is to empower ASEAN states vis-à-vis extraregional humanitarian actors. The AHA Centre works to enable Member States to gatekeep intrusive extraregional aid and, ultimately, to transform authority relations in the international humanitarian system in favor of state actors that have traditionally found themselves in a peripheral and passive role.

Frontiers in Political Science

The Pacific Review, 2020

ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and dis... more ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). Despite broad support for the idea of 'localizing' HADR governance, the rise of regional agency has in practice led to uncertainty and frictions between humanitarian stakeholders. The article makes sense of these tensions by investigating the narratives through which intra-and extraregional agents construct the role of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). Based on the assumption that narratives are central legitimating practices when new agents enter a governance arena, it analyzes textual material produced by different humanitarian organizations that operate in Southeast Asia, as well as interviews with representatives from these organizations. Their accounts of the AHA Centre's role can be grouped into four narratives that are bound up with competing ideas about regional humanitarian order: an affirmative one, a skeptical one, a critical one and a transformative one. The article thus rejects characterizations of regional HADR as a rationally designed 'architecture' and instead defines it as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2020

Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. A... more Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. Although not always explicit, realist assumptions informed most of this early scholarship. From the organization’s foundation in 1967 until the end of the Cold War, research focused almost exclusively on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the 1990s, new regional initiatives led to a broadened empirical scope and encouraged the adoption of new perspectives from broader debates in International Relations theory, such as liberalism and constructivism. However, this increasing pluralism was still highly Western-centric in terms of its theoretical underpinnings. Since the 2000s, there has been a conscious effort, driven by scholars from inside and outside the region, to draw on critical and indigenous traditions of political thought in accounting for the distinctive features of regionalism in Southeast Asia. Despite the diversity of research questions and approaches, resear...

International Society, 2020

This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing quest... more This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the utility, often underestimated, of the English School in making sense of topical issues in world politics. We revisit research on, first, the role of emerging powers and the future of world order; second, globalization and regionalization; and third, European security and Brexit. In each case, the ES sensitivity to nuance and its historical awareness make sense of the complexity and apparent contradictions of ongoing transitions. We conclude that the unique theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach of the English School makes it an essential resource for understanding and critically investigating current world politics.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

The organizational roots of the EU and ASEAN lie in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter shows that ... more The organizational roots of the EU and ASEAN lie in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter shows that the normative arguments influencing their foundation date much further back, as they were deeply intertwined with the transformation of the institutions of the global international society in the early twentieth century. It reconstructs how the increasingly powerful challenges to colonialism in Europe and Southeast Asia laid the normative groundwork for regionalism. The chapter thus puts the foundation of both regional organizations in the context of global decolonization processes and traces the implications of the successes, but also the dysfunctionalities and ongoing normative tensions resulting from decolonization for the subsequent institutional developments in both regions. The normative arguments surrounding decolonization therefore set the scene for the regional organizations’ diverging trajectories until this day.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

By the mid-1980s, the ECʼs geographic extension covered roughly half of the European continent. 1... more By the mid-1980s, the ECʼs geographic extension covered roughly half of the European continent. 1 Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Spain had joined the six founding states. Turkey was aspiring to join, but to the east, the boundaries seemed fixed for the time being. Meanwhile, ASEAN had admitted Brunei Darussalam in 1984 but it, too, was far from being a pan-regional organization when measured against common geographical conceptions of Southeast Asia. These limitations were hardly surprising given the 'overlay' of regional politics by global superpower rivalry (Buzan and Waever 2010). With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, questions of organizational boundaries came to the forefront for both the EC and ASEAN. The ensuing debates eventually resulted in an enlargement boost, both through the formal admission of new member states and the creation of new organizational frameworks beyond full membership. With 12 new member states, the Eastern Enlargement in 2004 and 2007 marks the biggest expansion in the EU's history. In parallel, the organization launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), an institutional umbrella for relations with countries in its periphery. ASEAN also grew considerably, admitting four new members between 1997 and CHAPTER 6

International Organization in the Anarchical Society, 2018

The development of history is not a sudden and accidental flash in the pan, but a continuous dyna... more The development of history is not a sudden and accidental flash in the pan, but a continuous dynamic process involving several layers of men and women reacting to such given historical conditions extant in life and society; and it is not always a smooth placid one in its course. This then is how we must conceive of our freedom struggle … Aung San (1946)

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

This chapter traces the normative discourses surrounding the founding of the EC and ASEAN. Region... more This chapter traces the normative discourses surrounding the founding of the EC and ASEAN. Regional boundaries and the relations between intra- and extra-regional actors were central themes of these initial institution building discourses. In Europe, tensions between integrationist and nationalist conceptions of imperialism shaped the debates on regional organization after the Second World War. This conflict crystallized in diverging visions for the European Communities’ relations with African countries on the level of secondary institutions. In Southeast Asia, a broad agreement among the governments of the newly independent states emerged to institutionalize principles of nonintervention and peaceful dispute settlement on the level of primary institutions. However, the divergent strategic interests between states with security ties to former colonial powers and strictly non-aligned governments impeded the development of a stronger normative consensus regarding the external relations of regional states. This problem significantly shaped the early years of Southeast Asian regionalism and inscribed an institutional compromise in ASEAN that would have a long-lasting influence on its future trajectory. Efforts to come to terms with the lingering influence of colonialism are thus tangible in both regions. The normative tensions and contestation accompanying these struggles complicated the establishment of regional organizations and had a crucial influence on their institutional pathways.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

This chapter accounts for the different pathways of the EU and ASEAN in legal integration by exam... more This chapter accounts for the different pathways of the EU and ASEAN in legal integration by examining how actors drew on existing regional norms or constructed new ones to promote or oppose legal integration. In Europe, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 with its rules for EU citizenship marked one of the biggest leaps in integration in the organization’s history. These provisions were the culmination point of a decades-long process in which changes in primary and secondary institutions alternately catalyzed one another, driven by the discursive activism of pro-integration actors who managed to forge powerful interest coalitions and exploit tensions between regional primary institutions. Despite this dynamism, the institutionalization of European citizenship rules remained incomplete due to persistent tensions between the region’s primary institutions. In Southeast Asia, the adoption of the ASEAN Charter was a key integration milestone for the regional organization, but it also fell sho...

Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 2015

Comparative regionalism is a budding research field which generates a demand for interregional fo... more Comparative regionalism is a budding research field which generates a demand for interregional forms of knowledge production as a way to overcome regional intellectual parochialism. However, this demand is yet to be matched by appropriate academic networks. Valuable regional research networks exist in the form of punctual interaction at international conferences, but dialogue between regions that goes beyond these is still rare. There may be a number of reasons for this. Apart from potentially differing research cultures, the simple fact that institutionalizing intellectual exchange across geographical distances is usually cost-intensive is certainly one of the most important barriers. This is especially true for countries and regions where the financial equipment of research institutions is poor and funding for travel is sparse. Those who suffer the most under such conditions are students and young researchers with generally fewer personal resources and limited access to funding fo...

Review of International Studies, 2021

This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemy – the empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-use – as resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or ‘true’ meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni- or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc ...

Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 2020

Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler In... more Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler Integration auf normativ eingebettete Diskursdynamiken zurückzuführen ist. Grundlegend für diese These ist ein Modell regionaler Integration, das Anleihen bei Theorien kommunikativen und strategischen Handelns einerseits und der English School andererseits nimmt. Im Gegensatz zu den rationalistischen Frameworks von Intergouvernementalismus und Neofunktionalismus stellt es die diskursive Verfasstheit von Integration in den Vordergrund. Dementsprechend begreife ich konkurrierende Integrationslogiken nicht als objektive Kausalmechanismen, sondern als Diskursmotive. Deren Resonanz in konkreten Aushandlungsprozessen von institutionellem Wandel wird von einem normativen Kontext bedingt, der sich aus regionalen Primärinstitutionen konstituiert. Durch eine vergleichende Studie von Verrechtlichungsprozessen in der Europäischen Union (EU) und der Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) zeigt ...

Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2020

The 'hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a mo... more The 'hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a model for peacekeeping cooperation between the UN and African regional organizations. However, UNAMID soon faced contestation from different stakeholders, and the UN and the AU have now essentially abandoned the hybrid approach. The article reconstructs how the mission's deteriorating legitimacy relates to changing selflegitimation strategies by the two organizations. The UN and the AU pursued mutual legitimation when establishing UNAMID, but later mobilized historical narratives and diverging normative standards to promote competing authority claims. The article thus advances an understanding of inter-organizational relations as inherently political.

Pacific Review, May 2, 2023

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governanc... more This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governance, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We argue that important insights into this issue can be gleaned by analyzing how ASEAN has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most existing research on ASEAN considers sovereignty an obstacle to effective regional governance without further interrogating it conceptually. Such a monolithic understanding fails to account for ASEAN's variegated response to the pandemic. To develop a fuller account of the relation between sovereignty and regional governance, we engage with scholarship on sovereignty that emphasizes its performative and contextual character, and develop a framework that distinguishes four different sovereignty scripts. Drawing on expert interviews and document analysis, we show that ASEAN's multifaceted Covid-19 response is a result of member states' parallel enactment of diverging and overlapping sovereignty scripts, which engender competing modes of governance. Our study shows that typical governance problems-institutional proliferation and incoherence as well as implementation gaps-can be understood as emerging from diverging imperatives for practicing sovereignty and statehood. We suggest that our framework can be tested in other policy fields and regional organizations beyond ASEAN.

Review of International Studies, 2021

This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemythe empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-useas resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or 'true' meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni-or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc enactment) and outline their varying effects on the legitimacy and effectiveness of global governance. Based on this discussion, the article points to the normative implications of a radically non-essentialist conception of norms and suggests harnessing the positive potential of norm ambiguity as an ethically desirable condition that promotes human diversity and the plurality of global life.

Pacific Review, 2023

This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governanc... more This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governance, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We argue that important insights into this issue can be gleaned by analyzing how ASEAN has responded to the Covid-19 pandemic. Most existing research on ASEAN considers sovereignty an obstacle to effective regional governance without further interrogating it conceptually. Such a monolithic understanding fails to account for ASEAN's variegated response to the pandemic. To develop a fuller account of the relation between sovereignty and regional governance, we engage with scholarship on sovereignty that emphasizes its performative and contextual character, and develop a framework that distinguishes four different sovereignty scripts. Drawing on expert interviews and document analysis, we show that ASEAN's multifaceted Covid-19 response is a result of member states' parallel enactment of diverging and overlapping sovereignty scripts, which engender competing modes of governance. Our study shows that typical governance problems-institutional proliferation and incoherence as well as implementation gaps-can be understood as emerging from diverging imperatives for practicing sovereignty and statehood. We suggest that our framework can be tested in other policy fields and regional organizations beyond ASEAN.

International Affairs, 2023

The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders... more The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders of multilateralism and the so-called liberal international order. Due to their frequent attacks on established international organizations (IOs), populists are often falsely portrayed as unilateralists. Our article addresses the apparent contradiction that populist leaders delegitimate certain IOs but actively legitimate others, and examines on what grounds they do so. We study speeches by three populist leaders from different continents: Viktor Orbán, Hugo Chávez and Rodrigo Duterte. The analysis shows that their (de)legitimation of IOs relies on representational claims, which critically interrogate on whose authority IOs speak, in whose interest they act, who they are made up of and what they stand for. Using the representational frames of popular sovereignty and popular identity, the three leaders have subverted conventional liberal arguments that legitimate IOs with regard to their performance or procedures. Based on these insights, we argue that instead of criticizing populists for being unilateralists (which they rarely are), stakeholders of established IOs should meet the populist challenge by engaging in more fundamental debates over the very purpose and mandate of IOs.

International Affairs, 2024

There is a widespread belief among scholars and policymakers that populism has fueled a unilatera... more There is a widespread belief among scholars and policymakers that populism has fueled a unilateralist backlash because of its emphasis on nationalism, popular sovereignty and identity politics. Although a few populist governments have indeed withdrawn from some international institutions, this 'disengagement hypothesis' needs to be scrutinized and unpacked. In this article, we develop a framework that distinguishes between four types of institutional disengagement-criticism, obstruction, extortion, and exit-and show that populist governments use them in a fluid and tactical way to navigate between the radical and pragmatic imperatives of populist politics. Our comparative case study of the Hungarian executive under Viktor Orbán (since 2010) and the Trump administration in the US (2017-2021) demonstrates that the two governments have disengaged from international institutions by combining various forms of disengagement, which only very rarely resulted in exit. The article thus deepens our understanding of the impact of populism on both individual institutions and the multilateral order more broadly, and helps policymakers develop strategies to counter the adverse effects of populism.

Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations

Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional fu... more Why do Southeast Asian states use regional mechanisms for disaster relief? From a conventional functionalist perspective, inadequate domestic-level responses to emergencies create a demand for scaled-up governance. This article offers an alternative interpretation of disaster cooperation in Southeast Asia. Drawing on theoretical insights from comparative regionalism and critical disaster studies, it argues that the raison d’être of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre) is to empower ASEAN states vis-à-vis extraregional humanitarian actors. The AHA Centre works to enable Member States to gatekeep intrusive extraregional aid and, ultimately, to transform authority relations in the international humanitarian system in favor of state actors that have traditionally found themselves in a peripheral and passive role.

Frontiers in Political Science

The Pacific Review, 2020

ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and dis... more ASEAN member states have invested substantially in cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR). Despite broad support for the idea of 'localizing' HADR governance, the rise of regional agency has in practice led to uncertainty and frictions between humanitarian stakeholders. The article makes sense of these tensions by investigating the narratives through which intra-and extraregional agents construct the role of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). Based on the assumption that narratives are central legitimating practices when new agents enter a governance arena, it analyzes textual material produced by different humanitarian organizations that operate in Southeast Asia, as well as interviews with representatives from these organizations. Their accounts of the AHA Centre's role can be grouped into four narratives that are bound up with competing ideas about regional humanitarian order: an affirmative one, a skeptical one, a critical one and a transformative one. The article thus rejects characterizations of regional HADR as a rationally designed 'architecture' and instead defines it as a deeply political arena where different conceptions of order are asserted, contested and negotiated.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, 2020

Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. A... more Research on regional organizations in Southeast Asia began to form during the Second World War. Although not always explicit, realist assumptions informed most of this early scholarship. From the organization’s foundation in 1967 until the end of the Cold War, research focused almost exclusively on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In the 1990s, new regional initiatives led to a broadened empirical scope and encouraged the adoption of new perspectives from broader debates in International Relations theory, such as liberalism and constructivism. However, this increasing pluralism was still highly Western-centric in terms of its theoretical underpinnings. Since the 2000s, there has been a conscious effort, driven by scholars from inside and outside the region, to draw on critical and indigenous traditions of political thought in accounting for the distinctive features of regionalism in Southeast Asia. Despite the diversity of research questions and approaches, resear...

International Society, 2020

This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing quest... more This chapter asks in what way the English School (ES) is a helpful framework for addressing questions that are likely to concern International Relations researchers in the years to come. We draw on recent scholarship to demonstrate the utility, often underestimated, of the English School in making sense of topical issues in world politics. We revisit research on, first, the role of emerging powers and the future of world order; second, globalization and regionalization; and third, European security and Brexit. In each case, the ES sensitivity to nuance and its historical awareness make sense of the complexity and apparent contradictions of ongoing transitions. We conclude that the unique theoretical, conceptual and methodological approach of the English School makes it an essential resource for understanding and critically investigating current world politics.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

The organizational roots of the EU and ASEAN lie in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter shows that ... more The organizational roots of the EU and ASEAN lie in the 1950s and 1960s. This chapter shows that the normative arguments influencing their foundation date much further back, as they were deeply intertwined with the transformation of the institutions of the global international society in the early twentieth century. It reconstructs how the increasingly powerful challenges to colonialism in Europe and Southeast Asia laid the normative groundwork for regionalism. The chapter thus puts the foundation of both regional organizations in the context of global decolonization processes and traces the implications of the successes, but also the dysfunctionalities and ongoing normative tensions resulting from decolonization for the subsequent institutional developments in both regions. The normative arguments surrounding decolonization therefore set the scene for the regional organizations’ diverging trajectories until this day.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

By the mid-1980s, the ECʼs geographic extension covered roughly half of the European continent. 1... more By the mid-1980s, the ECʼs geographic extension covered roughly half of the European continent. 1 Denmark, Greece, Ireland, the UK, Portugal and Spain had joined the six founding states. Turkey was aspiring to join, but to the east, the boundaries seemed fixed for the time being. Meanwhile, ASEAN had admitted Brunei Darussalam in 1984 but it, too, was far from being a pan-regional organization when measured against common geographical conceptions of Southeast Asia. These limitations were hardly surprising given the 'overlay' of regional politics by global superpower rivalry (Buzan and Waever 2010). With the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, questions of organizational boundaries came to the forefront for both the EC and ASEAN. The ensuing debates eventually resulted in an enlargement boost, both through the formal admission of new member states and the creation of new organizational frameworks beyond full membership. With 12 new member states, the Eastern Enlargement in 2004 and 2007 marks the biggest expansion in the EU's history. In parallel, the organization launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), an institutional umbrella for relations with countries in its periphery. ASEAN also grew considerably, admitting four new members between 1997 and CHAPTER 6

International Organization in the Anarchical Society, 2018

The development of history is not a sudden and accidental flash in the pan, but a continuous dyna... more The development of history is not a sudden and accidental flash in the pan, but a continuous dynamic process involving several layers of men and women reacting to such given historical conditions extant in life and society; and it is not always a smooth placid one in its course. This then is how we must conceive of our freedom struggle … Aung San (1946)

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

This chapter traces the normative discourses surrounding the founding of the EC and ASEAN. Region... more This chapter traces the normative discourses surrounding the founding of the EC and ASEAN. Regional boundaries and the relations between intra- and extra-regional actors were central themes of these initial institution building discourses. In Europe, tensions between integrationist and nationalist conceptions of imperialism shaped the debates on regional organization after the Second World War. This conflict crystallized in diverging visions for the European Communities’ relations with African countries on the level of secondary institutions. In Southeast Asia, a broad agreement among the governments of the newly independent states emerged to institutionalize principles of nonintervention and peaceful dispute settlement on the level of primary institutions. However, the divergent strategic interests between states with security ties to former colonial powers and strictly non-aligned governments impeded the development of a stronger normative consensus regarding the external relations of regional states. This problem significantly shaped the early years of Southeast Asian regionalism and inscribed an institutional compromise in ASEAN that would have a long-lasting influence on its future trajectory. Efforts to come to terms with the lingering influence of colonialism are thus tangible in both regions. The normative tensions and contestation accompanying these struggles complicated the establishment of regional organizations and had a crucial influence on their institutional pathways.

Regional Organizations in International Society, 2018

This chapter accounts for the different pathways of the EU and ASEAN in legal integration by exam... more This chapter accounts for the different pathways of the EU and ASEAN in legal integration by examining how actors drew on existing regional norms or constructed new ones to promote or oppose legal integration. In Europe, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 with its rules for EU citizenship marked one of the biggest leaps in integration in the organization’s history. These provisions were the culmination point of a decades-long process in which changes in primary and secondary institutions alternately catalyzed one another, driven by the discursive activism of pro-integration actors who managed to forge powerful interest coalitions and exploit tensions between regional primary institutions. Despite this dynamism, the institutionalization of European citizenship rules remained incomplete due to persistent tensions between the region’s primary institutions. In Southeast Asia, the adoption of the ASEAN Charter was a key integration milestone for the regional organization, but it also fell sho...

Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 2015

Comparative regionalism is a budding research field which generates a demand for interregional fo... more Comparative regionalism is a budding research field which generates a demand for interregional forms of knowledge production as a way to overcome regional intellectual parochialism. However, this demand is yet to be matched by appropriate academic networks. Valuable regional research networks exist in the form of punctual interaction at international conferences, but dialogue between regions that goes beyond these is still rare. There may be a number of reasons for this. Apart from potentially differing research cultures, the simple fact that institutionalizing intellectual exchange across geographical distances is usually cost-intensive is certainly one of the most important barriers. This is especially true for countries and regions where the financial equipment of research institutions is poor and funding for travel is sparse. Those who suffer the most under such conditions are students and young researchers with generally fewer personal resources and limited access to funding fo...

Review of International Studies, 2021

This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts ... more This article offers a new conceptualisation of the meaning of norms in world politics. It starts from the observation that existing norm scholarship in International Relations has underestimated the role of ambiguity in the constitution of norm meaning. To address this shortcoming, we advance a conceptualisation that sees norm polysemy – the empirically observable plurality of norm meanings-in-use – as resulting from the enactment of inherently ambiguous norms in different contexts. By foregrounding norm ambiguity, this view offers a radically non-essentialist understanding of norm meaning, one that eschews any attempt to salvage final or ‘true’ meanings behind the polysemy of norms. Using empirical illustrations from different fields of contemporary global governance, we identify four mechanisms through which actors practically cope with the multiplicity of norm meanings that arises from norm ambiguity (deliberation, adjudication, uni- or multilateral fixation attempts, and ad hoc ...

Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen, 2020

Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler In... more Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass die variierende Erklärungskraft klassischer Theorien regionaler Integration auf normativ eingebettete Diskursdynamiken zurückzuführen ist. Grundlegend für diese These ist ein Modell regionaler Integration, das Anleihen bei Theorien kommunikativen und strategischen Handelns einerseits und der English School andererseits nimmt. Im Gegensatz zu den rationalistischen Frameworks von Intergouvernementalismus und Neofunktionalismus stellt es die diskursive Verfasstheit von Integration in den Vordergrund. Dementsprechend begreife ich konkurrierende Integrationslogiken nicht als objektive Kausalmechanismen, sondern als Diskursmotive. Deren Resonanz in konkreten Aushandlungsprozessen von institutionellem Wandel wird von einem normativen Kontext bedingt, der sich aus regionalen Primärinstitutionen konstituiert. Durch eine vergleichende Studie von Verrechtlichungsprozessen in der Europäischen Union (EU) und der Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) zeigt ...

Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2020

The 'hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a mo... more The 'hybrid' United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) was initially hailed as a model for peacekeeping cooperation between the UN and African regional organizations. However, UNAMID soon faced contestation from different stakeholders, and the UN and the AU have now essentially abandoned the hybrid approach. The article reconstructs how the mission's deteriorating legitimacy relates to changing selflegitimation strategies by the two organizations. The UN and the AU pursued mutual legitimation when establishing UNAMID, but later mobilized historical narratives and diverging normative standards to promote competing authority claims. The article thus advances an understanding of inter-organizational relations as inherently political.