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The presentation examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on Southeast Asian regionalism. It rests on a theoretical framework informed by Historical Institutionalism. It argues that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has responded to the crisis in a path dependent way. The latter is shaped by a time-tested repository of cooperation norms which give precedence to national sovereignty. Hence belated, ad hoc and largely declaratory collective responses to the COVID-19 crisis constitute business as usual. They are unlikely to have disruptive effects on ASEAN’s operations. Yet member countries’ emergency measures are intensifying ongoing processes of democratic backsliding and will have negative repercussions on the grouping’s inclusiveness. They will propel a reversal into an elitist and state-centric regional grouping. Also, relations with China, which on the one hand are characterized by Chinese material largesse, but on the other by encroachments on ASEAN member states’ claims in the contested South China Sea, will jeopardize regional cohesion.

Jürgen Rüland studied Political Science, History and German Literature at the University of Freiburg, Germany. He earned a PhD in Political Science from the University of Freiburg in 1981 and his habilitation degree (Habilitation) at the same university in 1989. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Stanford, the National University of Singapore, the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, Chiang Mai University, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta, and FLACSO Argentina, Buenos Aires. Since 1999, with short interruptions, he is external examiner at the Faculty of Economics and Public Administration of the University of Malaya. In 2009, Universitas Indonesia appointed him as an Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences.

He is currently a member of the editorial boards of the Pacific Review, Pacific Affairs, European Journal of East Asian Studies, Asia Europe Journal, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Contexto Internacional and Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB). In 2007, Pacific Affairs awarded him and Christl Kessler the William L. Holland Prize for the best article in 2006. He was the Stanford University/National University of Singapore Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Fellow for Southeast Asia 2010 and fellow at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS) in 2010/2011 and 2014/2015. His research interests include cooperation and institution-building in international relations, globalization and regionalization, international relations and security in the Asia-Pacific region, democratization, political, economic, social and cultural change in Southeast Asia.