In the Shadow of the Member States

"Lukas Müller clearly depicts the dynamics of ASEAN's internal policy-making through numerous interviews, exploring how the Secretariat plays a role in shaping institutional policies. This is a must-read book for those who study ASEAN and Southeast Asia."

"Lukas Müller provides an important contribution to our understanding of the inner workings of an organization. A must read for anyone looking to know more about how ASEAN, its key bodies and external partnerships actually work in practice."

--Stéphanie Martel, Queen's University, Canada

This book provides practice-oriented insights into the agency of two previously underestimated actors in Southeast Asian regionalism: the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN's dialog partners. In doing so, it offers an inside view of the policymaking processes in the ASEAN Political-Security and the ASEAN Economic Community, analyzing the interplay and agency by both actors in agenda setting, formulation, decision-making, implementation, and monitoring. Drawing on a trove of novel data, including never-before analyzed sources and numerous interviews with ASEAN insiders, the book showcases a number of concrete cases of policymaking, including competition and counterterrorism policies. The chapters focusing on the ASEAN Secretariat address aspects related to institutional autonomy, capacity, and reforms within the bureaucracy. In the chapters on ASEAN's dialog partners, the book provides insights into the bilateral management of institutional support programs, as well as the impacts of support on ASEAN's policymaking processes.

Lukas Maximilian Müller is Caritas Germany's advisor to the Lake Chad region. Previously, he was a researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Freiburg, where he also received his PhD. In addition, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Erfurt as well as an advisor on sustainable development for the Asia-Europe Foundation in Singapore. During his PhD, he was a visiting fellow with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies Indonesia in 2018 as well as with the Habibie Center in 2019. He has published widely on ASEAN, for instance in the Pacific Review, the Contemporary Journal of East Asia Studies, and the European Journal of East Asian Studies.