Financial crises and plurilateral discourses

Bozhilova, Diana (2017) Financial crises and plurilateral discourses. In: Sixth Euroacademia Forum of Critical Studies Asking Big Questions Again, 15-17 November 2017, Lucca, Italy.

Abstract

This paper analyses impacts of the Eurozone crisis on the global standing of the European Union (EU) through the failure of the EU interregional approach in the EU-ASEAN plurilateral discourse. It appropriates theoretical models of socialisation, in order to explain the dearth of cooperation in the EU-ASEAN plurilateral partnership during the Eurozone crisis. The paper draws on comparative accounts of financial crises and exit strategies from the EU and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN). It further utilises the systemic hypothesis from the work of Agarwal and Fogarty on interregionalism (2003) and the appropriateness hypothesis of Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2004), in order to advance two propositions: (i) democratization is an unlikely avenue of EU ‘externalization’ in the EU-ASEAN plurilateral partnership; and (ii) preventing financial crises is the likeliest avenue for lesson-drawing in the EU-ASEAN plurilateral partnership but only if lesson- drawing can go beyond the scope of EU processes and policies, i.e. where the EU can itself be influenced by broader tendencies and patterns in the international system (Schimmelfenning 2012). Failure to see beyond the normative ontological quality of the EU, is likely to diminish the global appeal of the supranational integrative model of the EU and may re-enforce instead the preference for bilateralism over interregionalism in the EU-ASEAN partnership.

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