Recalibrating ASEAN Consensus: Strategic Divergence and India’s Regional Imperatives

By : Prem Singh Gill

Page No: 41-58

Abstract
This article examines how ASEAN’s consensus-driven decision making practice is being reshaped by political divergence, democratic regression, and great-power competition across Southeast Asia. Drawing on three case studies—Myanmar’s post-coup crisis, South China Sea maritime disputes, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—it maps how consensus operates differently across political, security, and economic domains, and develops a typology that distinguishing enabling, blocking, and conditional consensus. Crucially, the article argues that ASEAN’s internal fragmentation and strategic recalibration carry direct, concrete consequences for India. As a key ASEAN dialogue partner, an indirect South China Sea stakeholder through its Act East Policy, an RCEP absentee, and a neighbour directly affected by the Myanmar crisis, India must engage purposefully with ASEAN’s evolving consensus architecture. The essay concludes that incremental reform—not abandonment—of the ASEAN Way offers the most viable path forward, and that India is well-positioned both to support that recalibration and to benefit from it.

Author
Prem Singh Gill is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/IFAJ.2026.21.1.3