For regional organizations (ROs) as geographically defined entities, questions of membership often raise moral questions about the very foundations of regional identity. To date, comparative approaches to the role of norms in the politics of RO enlargement are a missing piece in the regionalism literature. This paper assumes that enlargement practices are shaped by discourses about legitimate actorness. Drawing on the concept of “standards of civilization,” I argue that prospective RO members are judged against a set of norms—the standard of membership—which constitute basic ideas about the identity of the regional international society. As evidence from the Spanish and Greek accession to the European Community and the accession of Myanmar and Cambodia to ASEAN shows, this standard is not a static catalogue of cultural values, as existing accounts suggest, but develops in response to accession requests which trigger normative crises among the existing member states. In such situations, RO actors may argue for the inclusion of new norms in the standard of membership by drawing on “cognitive priors”. Enlargement processes thus reveal a dialectical relation between regional norms and boundary-drawing; while a regional standard of membership informs the redefinition of an RO’s boundaries, the accession of new candidates also transforms that very standard.

中文翻译：

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欧盟和东盟成员国和扩大的区域标准

对于作为地理定义实体的区域组织 (RO)，成员资格问题通常会引发关于区域身份基础的道德问题。迄今为止，关于规范在 RO 扩大政治中的作用的比较方法是区域主义文献中缺失的一部分。本文假设扩大实践是由有关合法行为者的话语塑造的。借鉴“文明标准”的概念，我认为潜在的 RO 成员是根据一套规范——成员标准——来判断的，这些规范构成了关于区域国际社会身份的基本思想。西班牙和希腊加入欧洲共同体以及缅甸和柬埔寨加入东盟的证据表明，该标准不是文化价值观的静态目录，正如现有帐户所暗示的那样，但根据加入请求而发展，这些请求引发了现有成员国之间的规范危机。在这种情况下，RO 参与者可能会通过利用“认知先验”来主张将新规范纳入成员标准。因此，扩大过程揭示了区域规范与边界划定之间的辩证关系；虽然区域成员标准有助于重新定义 RO 的边界，但新候选人的加入也改变了这一标准。因此，扩大过程揭示了区域规范与边界划定之间的辩证关系；虽然区域成员标准有助于重新定义 RO 的边界，但新候选人的加入也改变了这一标准。因此，扩大过程揭示了区域规范与划界之间的辩证关系；虽然区域成员标准有助于重新定义 RO 的边界，但新候选人的加入也改变了这一标准。