Year:
2007
This chapter examines the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) and the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) that has grown up alongside it. ASEM is an inter-regional arrangement that comprises 45 ‘cooperation partners’ from East Asia and Europe. The inter-governmental ASEM process formally accommodates representatives from business and trade unions and has a Foundation tasked with establishing inter-cultural dialogue and social exchange. However, ASEM has been reluctant to include within its structures representatives from other non-governmental groupings, who have formed their own group, the AEPF, which operates in parallel with the official summit. This chapter assesses whether and how the AEPF has advanced the democratic accountability of ASEM. The discussion considers the ways that official circles in ASEM have addressed questions of accountability to date, and analyses the ways in which the AEPF raises important claims about transparency, accountability and equity in the actions of ASEM decision makers. The chapter asserts that the ways in which the AEPF has been able to influence government actions within ASEM to date, and the levels of accountability within the ASEM structure itself, have been contingent upon the particular structural conditions in which the various actors have had to function. The chapter concludes that accountability, itself a contested concept, is shaped by the structural frames of reference of agents, by their (power) relationships with one another, and by both the internal and the external mechanisms available to them to ensure accountability. The chapter also asks whether accountability can be ensured in respect of governance mechanisms whose modus operandi may not be conducive to transparency and scrutiny.
