This book revealingly traces the ways in which third-party perceptions of an international actor affect its agency in global affairs by using the example of the European Union’s engagement in Southeast Asian non-traditional security.

Utilizing an innovative analytical framework emphasising the intersubjective nature of international actorness, it provides novel insights into cooperation between the EU and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The book covers fields such as counter-terrorism, disaster management, or maritime security affairs and emphasises the role that ASEAN’s perceptions of the EU play in them. Based on rich empirical data gained from multiple interviews in Europe and Southeast Asia, the author uncovers the missing link between external perceptions of the EU and their impact on joint EU-ASEAN endeavours in non-traditional security fields. The book concludes by making some concrete recommendations to policy-makers engaged in EU external relations and reminds us that ‘the other’ and its domestic context might be even more important in thinking about international affairs than acknowledged thus far.

This book is of key interest to scholars, practitioners and students of EU foreign policy, EU-ASEAN affairs, EU-Asia relations, and more broadly of EU studies, International Relations, regionalism and interregionalism as well as security studies.