Divergent Ideas, Distant Friendship: Assessing Korea s 30 Years of Political-Security Diplomacy with ASEAN

Although 30 years have passed since the ASEAN-Korea dialogue partnership began, the two sides political and security relations remain irregular and limited. Although such limits have been widely recognized, they have rarely been examined comprehensively. This study aims to address this gap by focusing on Korean executive leadership as key diplomatic actors who are shaping an inconsistent and distant partnership with ASEAN. The findings show that the executives changing conceptualizations of the regions and the approaches to regional security with limited agency independence in the bureaucracy have been major obstacles to finding a reliable common ground for institutionalizing cooperation with ASEAN.