Mind the Gap: Explaining Implementation Shortfalls in the ASEAN Economic Community

Abstract

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is at a critical crossroad in terms of policy implementation. ASEAN announced of a significant achievement rate of 93 per cent at the end of 2015. However, effective implementation, described as policy execution that generated tangible benefits for the end-users in their cross-border activities remained patchy. Following the theoretical discussion on policy implementation, this paper postulates that it was the economic conflicts between countries and between firms of a country that led to a broad and accommodative regional policy document, thereby affecting the course of implementation. As implementation is a national issue, organisational conflicts between government agencies and bureaucrats further distorted the final outcome, and hindered progress towards meaningful implementation.