Evaluating the EU–ASEM relationship: a negotiated order approach

Explaining and understanding the external role of the European Union (EU) has been an under-researched aspect of theorizing about the EU. This article analyses the motivations and methods through which the EU and its member states attempt to regulate contact with international actors. Examining the EU’s contact with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and more recently the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), it argues that the negotiated order approach offers four insights overlooked by other approaches. First, it sheds light on the EU’s motivations in establishing contact with other regional groupings; second, it challenges the conceptualization of the EU as a monolithic political system; third, it highlights the EU as a conservative political actor because of the nature of the EU policy-making space; Žnally, it highlights the importance of the geo-strategic environment in shaping and reshaping the interests of the EU and its member states in terms of by whom and how contact is regulated. The extent to which one can generalize from the Žndings of this case study is the subject of further testing, but in the interim, the negotiated order approach offers an important framework for unlocking the empirical complexity of EU external relations.