Summitry on the Regional Level: The ASEAN Summit and Regional Integration in Southeast Asia

Summitry is a well-established form of interaction among states, which is conducted with various goals, such as addressing transnational issues, settling critical political disagreements, and forging an international order. Heads of state and government, competent persons to politically represent their states at the highest level, increasingly attend diplomatic relations and establish direct contacts with their counterparts thanks to the technological improvements in transportation and communication. They also gather on the regional level in an ad hoc manner or in the form of regular summits. In tandem with the intensification of regional interstate cooperation in an institutionalized way, summitry has become a considerable channel for the regional integration of states. In this sense, this study scrutinizes the consequences of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summits on the evolution of the Association from a historical and institutional perspective. Considering that ASEAN’s performance primarily hinges on the consensual will of its member states, the study principally asserts that regional summits in ASEAN’s institutional functioning have an extensive effect on the deepening and advancing regional integration in Southeast Asia.