ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses four concepts pertaining to the three research questions/interests within this book. These concepts are ‘strategic partnership’, ‘actor’, ‘NTS’, and ‘inter-regionalism’. In light of the ministerial commitment between the ASEAN member states and the EU to work towards elevating the inter-regional relationship status from an enhanced partnership to a strategic partnership, introduction of strategic partnership and exploratory assessment of its impact on the overall ASEAN-EU security interaction is timely. Following the discussion of strategic partnership, the standing conceptualisations of the other three concepts from the first book are revisited and enhanced.
