In it Together Yet Worlds Apart? EU–ASEAN Counter-Terrorism Cooperation After the Bali Bombings

Abstract

The externalization of the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) as part of the EU’s wider external relations has received increasing scholarly attention in the last years. An important and reoccurring theme within this field, which has occupied scholars and policy-makers alike, has been the EU’s counter-terrorism cooperation with third states. Initially viewed as a ‘paper tiger’ in international efforts to combat terrorism, recent studies have illustrated the increasing activism of the EU in international counter-terrorism cooperation. However, these studies have exclusively drawn on North American or ENP case studies. By analysing the EU’s counter-terrorism with ASEAN this article tries to extend the empirical basis of contemporary scholarship to the case study of EU–ASEAN cooperation. It thereby attempts to examine prospects and limits of the externalization of JHA with a special focus on counter-terrorism policies beyond the immediate EU neighbourhood.