Cooperation Culture – Notions on the Significance of Cultural Norms and Principles in Regional and Interregional Cooperation-Processes – Part II
Cooperation Culture – Notions on the Significance of Cultural Norms and Principles in Regional and Interregional Cooperation-Processes – Part II

Summary/Abstract: The first part of this article was based on the thesis that different cooperation cultures exist. Taking into account empirical findings from norms and principles of regional cooperation of the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) two different cooperation cultures could be identified: Whereas the EU favors a formal, binding and supranational cooperation-style, the ASEAN is based on informal, non-binding and therefore intergovernmental forms of interstate cooperation. The article at hand deals with the question if different cooperation cultures can account for cooperation problems between states from different world regions. In other words: Is there a clash or rather a convergence of cooperation cultures? I argue that cooperation problems encountered in the interregional cooperation process located in the institutional framework of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) cannot merely be explained by cultural factors. The inability of Asian and European states finding common positions concerning the juridification of finance, trade, and investment issues can rather be explained by combining cultural and material factors. Thus, the main finding of both articles is that culture and hard facts are to be analytical integrated if one wants to arrive at sound explanations of state behavior in interregional and international cooperation processes.

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