Description: ASEAN as an Actor in International Fora addresses a blind spot in ASEAN research and in comparative regionalism studies by assessing why, how, when and to what extent ASEAN member governments achieve a collective presence in global fora. Written for academic researchers and practitioners working in areas such as international relations, political science and international law, it examines ASEAN's negotiating behavior with a novel four-point cohesion typology. The authors argue that ASEAN's 'cognitive prior' and its repository of cooperation norms have affected ASEAN's negotiation capacities, formats, strategies and cohesion in international fora. Using two case studies - one on ASEAN's cohesion in the WTO agricultural negotiations and one on UN negotiations on forced labor in Myanmar - they examine ASEAN's collective actions at different stages of negotiation, in different issue areas and in different negotiating fora. The book concludes by providing recommendations for strengthening ASEAN's international negotiation capacities.
Brief description: Paruedee Nguitragool is a lecturer at the School of International Affairs, Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Chiang Mai University (CMU), Thailand. Before joining CMU, she was a Research Associate at the Department of Political Science, University of Freiburg, Germany, and a guest researcher at many institutions in Southeast Asia, including Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore, Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and University of Indonesia (UI) in Jakarta, Indonesia. Her main research interests include the images of the West in Indonesia, and environmental politics and international relations in Southeast Asia.