ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book introduces the issue of migrant workers' protection in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by identifying how key problems at the regional-level policy-making can be better explained with consideration of national-level policy processes. It develops the framework of two-level games and sociological institutionalism into operationalisation. The book highlights ASEAN's instruments and mechanism in dealing with a foreign policy of social characteristics and represents the "first level" of the two-level games. It examines the role of the Malaysian government institutions in the creation of migrant worker protection regulation in ASEAN. The book explores the case studies of Indonesia and the Philippines to introduce the complexities of policy-making in developing countries, as well as to improve understanding of the application of the two-level sociological institutionalism as a systematic analytical framework and possible approach.
