Comparing Regional Organizations in Global Multilateral Institutions: ASEAN, the EU and the UN
Jens-Uwe Wunderlich, Aston University
Structural change end and accelerated globalization are transforming the international environment. A global governance complex is emerging characterized by an ever greater functional and regulatory role for multilateral organizations such as the UN and its associated agencies. The evolving global governance framework has created opportunities for regional organizations to participate as actors within the UN (and other multilateral institutions). This paper compares the EU and ASEAN as actors within the UN network. It begins by extrapolating framework conditions for the emergence of EU and ASEAN actorness from the literature. The core argument of this paper is that EU and ASEAN actorness is evolving in two succinct stages: Changes in the global environment create opportunities for the participation of regional organizations in global governance institutions, exposing representation and cohesion problems at the regional level. In response, ASEAN and the EU have initiated processes of institutional adaptation.