Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN has been continuously evolving in its efforts at regional cooperation. Over the years, the organization has grown from five to ten member states and has increased both the scope and depth of its cooperation. However, throughout its existence, national sensitivities have been a major factor to consider, and in many cases these have taken priority over the regional agendas.

One major success for ASEAN came in December 1997 with the adoption of ASEAN Vision 2020. This provided a long-term direction for its ambitions to gain benefits from greater integration. Using 2020 as the target year for the achievement of an ASEAN Community, this plan proposed to work through three intertwined pillars — ASEAN Security Community (ASC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and ASEAN Socio-cultural Community (ASCC).

In 2003, ASEAN leaders embraced individual ‘blueprints’ for these pillars., At the 12th ASEAN Summit in January 2007, the organization decided to bring forward the deadline for achieving an ASEAN Community from 2020 to 2015, given the fast changing global conditions. This volume is thus being published on the very year this ambition is being realized.

In the field of political and security cooperation, ASEAN has made significant headway. It has evolved towards being a rules-based organization by introducing instruments such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, and perhaps most significantly, the ASEAN Charter. Through mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, the ASEAN Plus Three, and more recently, the ASEAN Defence Minister's Meeting and the East Asia Summit, the ten member countries have succeeded in keeping the world's major powers engaged in the region.

Progress on the economic front has attracted most attention, as was expected. The AEC is to deliver on an integrated market and production space with free movement of goods, services, capital and skilled labour. While much has been achieved in terms of tariff reduction and trade facilitation, ASEAN is not yet an integrated production space. A significant number of economic measures have yet to be carried out by the member economies. Hence, the AEC is often viewed as a ‘work in progress’.

In its turn, ASCC measures are largely cross-cutting in nature and are mostly derived from the expected impact of economic integration.