Summitry and Leadership in Regional Organisations: Comparing ASEAN Summit and the European Council Summit

Abstract

This chapter analyses summitry in order to deepen our understanding of political leadership in a regional context. It argues that summitry enhances and facilitates leadership, as setting the agenda of a summit is the prerogative of the Chair or the host of a summit. This chapter focuses on six case studies: three summit meetings each for ASEAN and the EU. For ASEAN, the summit meetings discussed are the 11th ASEAN Summit held in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, the 27th ASEAN Summit which was also held in Kuala Lumpur in 2015, and the 45th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) held in 2012. For the EU, the summits examined are the June 1984 Fontainebleau European Council meeting, the December 1985 Luxemburg European Council meeting, and the June 2015 European Council meeting. The analysis within this chapter suggests that summitry is an important factor in facilitating leadership in a regional context, and thus is crucial for the success of regional community-building, in the case of both ASEAN and the EU.