This chapter explores how best to design regional institutions to
enhance AEC implementation. It begins with a political economy
account of regional integration in Section 2 that helps us understand
the factors that drive ASEAN countries’ national commitment to
regional integration as well as those that hold back these same
governments from fully implementing these commitments. By doing
so, we are better able to appreciate the ASEAN aversion to strong,
centralized institutions and the preference for flexibility in the way
regional integration is designed. Section 3 draws on the political
science literature to consider how institutions might theoretically be
designed to support cooperative projects like economic integration; this
section also reviews the various institutional mechanisms adopted in
ASEAN to support the AEC project. Based on the preceding discussion,
Section 4 provides some suggestions on how institutions in ASEAN
might be re-designed to support the AEC process in the light of national
and regional political realities.