Cooperation culture–notions on the significance of cultural norms and principles in regional and interregional cooperation-processes
Cooperation culture–notions on the significance of cultural norms and principles in regional and interregional cooperation-processes

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyze the basic differences between European and Asian forms of interstate or regional cooperation. In order to do so I will introduce the concept of cooperation culture which refers to funda-mental norms and principles of cooperation that are believed to have an ef-fect on the actual behavior of politicians, diplomats and policy-experts (epis-temic communities) in any international institution. The empirical analysis of the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) shows that different cooperation cultures do exist: Whereas the EU favors a formal, binding and supranational cooperation-style, the ASEAN is based on informal, non-binding and therefore intergovernmental forms of in-terstate cooperation. The question if different cooperation cultures can ac-count for cooperation problems between institutions from different world regions will be answered in the second part of my analysis (Part II: A clash or convergence of Cooperation Cultures?)

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