Frank Frost

Frank Frost has a BA Hons and PhD from the University of Sydney and has a long-standing interest in Australian foreign policy and Australia-Asia relations. His doctoral thesis was a study of the politics of the Australian military involvement in the Vietnam war from 1962 to 1972. Until February 2012 he worked as a research director and senior foreign affairs analyst in the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security Section of the Australian Parliamentary Library in Canberra, where he provided research and policy advice to Members and Senators and to committees of the Australian Parliament. He has also taught politics and international relations at the University of Sydney and been a visiting fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, and at the Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations at Griffith University in Brisbane.

Frank Frost’s publications include Australia's War in Vietnam (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987) and numerous articles and papers on ASEAN and Australia-ASEAN relations, including 'ASEAN and Regional Cooperation: Recent Developments and Australia’s Interests' (Canberra: Department of Parliamentary Services, 2013). He wrote Engaging the neighbours: Australia and ASEAN since 1974 as a Visiting Fellow from 2012 to 2015 in the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University.

Engaging the neighbours »

Australia and ASEAN since 1974

Authored by: Frank Frost

Publication date: July 2016

From modest beginnings in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become the premier regional institution in Southeast Asia. The 10 members are pursuing cooperation to develop the ‘ASEAN Community’ and also sponsor wider dialogues that involve the major powers. Australia has been interested in ASEAN since its inauguration and was the first country to establish a multilateral link with the Association, in 1974. Australia and ASEAN have subsequently engaged and cooperated on many issues of mutual concern, including efforts to secure an agreement to resolve the Cambodia conflict (signed in 1991), the initiation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping (1989) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (1994), the conclusion of the ASEAN–Australia–New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (signed in 2008) and the development of the East Asia Summit (from 2005). This book provides the first available detailed history of the evolution of Australia’s interactions with ASEAN. It assesses the origins and phases of development of Australia’s relations with ASEAN; the role ASEAN has played in Australian foreign policy since the 1970s; the ways in which the two sides have collaborated, and at times disagreed, in the pursuit of regional stability and security; and the key factors that will influence the relationship as it moves into its fifth decade.

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