Under what conditions do ASEAN states adopt foreign ideas? Why do they find the new ideas more attractive at certain times than others? This article offers a new instrumental explanation that idea receiver-promoter relations provide a powerful constraint on the idea diffusion process within ASEAN. Specifically, I develop a concept of ‘the dilemma of attraction-autonomy deficits.’ One commonality among the cases concerned in this study is that the new ideas were exported by foreign policy elites of major advanced power countries in the West (including Japan from the East). As leaders of weak dissimilar states vis-à-vis the idea-promoters, ASEAN elites share concerns over ‘attraction-deficits’ since the major powers’ disengagement from the region would disrupt their political survival. Ideational engagement can be one of the measures that ASEAN elites can take to cope with the concerns because it is expected to draw the ideapromoters’ attention to the region. However, a straightforward pledge of ideational convergence may allow the promoters’ increasing pressure on ASEAN leaders for giving up their ‘otherness’ to an undesirable extent. This could eventually lead concerns over autonomy-deficit to rise. But any divergent moves to buffer autonomy could make the relations with the West distant again, which might lead them to disengage from the region. This can raise their concerns over iii attraction-deficits again. This article argues that the pattern and timing of the ideational changes at the ASEAN level was a reflection of ASEAN elites’ decisions to manage the dilemma of inversely-related deficits. ASEAN’s responses to common security, human rights and AsiaPacific regionalism will be discussed to support this argument.

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US-ASEAN Security Relations: Challenges and Prospects

Managing International `Relations': ASEAN's Dilemma of Attraction-Autonomy Deficits and Ideational Changes after the Cold War

This essay traces the structural sources of Malaysia's South China Sea policy. It argues that Malaysia's ‘light-hedging’ approach is primarily a smaller-state's response to growing systemic pressur...

US-ASEAN Security Relations: Challenges and Prospects

Citations

Managing International `Relations': ASEAN's Dilemma of Attraction-Autonomy Deficits and Ideational Changes after the Cold War

Structural sources of Malaysia's South China Sea policy: power uncertainties and small-state hedging

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