Abstract
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has always presented observers with something of a paradox. Its reputation as the most successful regional grouping among less developed countries stands in marked contrast to its singular lack of achievement, despite a succession of proposals, in promoting economic cooperation among its member states. The percentage of the total trade of the member states conducted with each other, although higher than the intraregional trade of other groupings of less developed countries, fell in the 1970s and has only recently recovered to the levels prevailing at the time of ASEAN's creation in 1967 (see Table 1). While ASEAN's success in defusing regional conflicts provided the political prerequisites for the rapid growth of the economies of the region, the direct contribution to this growth made by regional economic arrangements was negligible. Given this unpromising record, the skepticism that greeted the announcement in January 1992 of ASEAN's most recent trade initiative, the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), is understandable. Was this skepticism justified or have circumstances changed such that the incentives for ASEAN governments to pursue regional economic cooperation are much greater than in the past? Commentators often attribute ASEAN's previous lack of success in the economic realm to a lack of political will. But lack of political will is merely a shorthand expression for the response of governments to the imbalance between the damage that domestic actors believe regional economic cooperation will do to their interests, and the expected gains to be derived from
Published Version
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