The inference in Hund's analysis is

The inference in Hund's analysis is that fitting ASEAN with institutional teeth-establishing mechanisms to compel compliance with agreements in one way or another - would, by itself, bring about a more unified and thereby more powerful ASEAN. Hund recommends sweeping reforms that include: a crossing of the loopholes in the AFTA agreement, the addition of teeth to the Dispute Settlement Mechanism and strengthening of the autonomy and capacity of the ASEAN secretariat. He suggests that without a shift to a rules-based system that such changes require, ASEAN,s credibility and relevance in regional affairs are in jeopardy [ Hund 2002; see also Akrasanee and Arunanondchai 2003; Soesastro 2003].
Constructivists take a very different view. If Arendt's claim that coercion destroys power is taken seriously, the equation that Hund has drawn, namely that teeth equals power, must be treated with scepticism.Indeed, if power lies in the degree of group cohesion rather than in the instruments of coercion (as Arendt suggests and constructivists imply) then the imposition of specific rules and practices from above without the necessary buttressing of political will from below could very well have the unintended consequence of weakening ASEAN. By way of an example, one can point to the slow emergence of AFTA and argue that `a more rigid goal-oriented, rule-based approach to regional economic liberalization which did not mesh with the prevailing regional culture would have broken down at any number of points along the way' (Stubbs 2000: 315).
This is not to say that constructivists are against a rules-based approach on principle, Rather, the point is that effective rules cannot be imposed from above but should emerge from below and fit in with the prevailing norms. For Hurd the key here is legitimacy, or:
the normative belief by an actor that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed.It is a subjective quality, relational between actor and institution, and defined by the actor's perception of the institution. The actor's perception may come from the substance of the rule or from the procedure or source by which it was constituted. Such a perception affects behaviour because it is internalized by the actor and helps to define how the actor sees its interests.
(Hund 1999: 381)