Interregionalism in Transnational Interest Networks: Euro-Asian Civil Society and the EU–ASEAN Free Trade Agreement

Abstract

The study of interest groups is still a relatively small field of political science. The process of globalization has brought about the evolution of interest networks from national organizations to regional and transnational networks. This article uses the modes of political participation framework created by Jayasuriya and Rodan, in order to study the created spaces used by public interest networks at an interregional level. The empirical case study relates to Asia-Europe Meeting: the Europe-Asian interregional institution, and the work of public interest networks stemming from the civil society organizations that shadow it in opposing the EU–Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) free trade agreement (FTA). We find that the ‘modes of political participation’ model explains quite accurately the political spaces created by civil society in the EU–ASEAN FTA. We extend the framework by adding a fifth space, lobbying, which appears out of isomorphism. This concept represents the adoption by organizations of practices carried by other institutions they interact with. In this case, public interest networks have adopted the practice of directly influencing policy-makers that was the prerogative of private interest groups.