The European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are international institutions with the purpose of ensuring peace and stability within their regions. The organizations facilitated cooperation through the economy and security. International governing institutions operate in many different spheres and levels, forms of governance, and with varying relationships to individual nations. The governing institutions can be divided into different categories. Scholars are still debating ASEAN’s significance because their inability to deal with many important regional situations and events have eroded their international credibility. However, the regional environment creates a political sphere where ASEAN members are met with balancing their demand for sovereignty and advantages for supporting ASEAN. Few social science traditions and research traditions take one single explanation into account like historical institutionalism (HI) and the institution’s stability. Historical institutionalists use causal mechanisms to highlight lingering patterns, or politics, over time. HI is relevant because it can handle the complexity in phenomenon that develops in political institutions. In conclusion, the EU and ASEAN are different because of their approaches to establish a cooperation. The EU is a supranational organization which began with a federalist vision from the founders. The nations were war-wary and wanted to rebuild the economy. The EU members have not in practice had equal power in the decision-making as size and their position in the voting system has mattered. It is difficult to move forward without certain states approval. By contrast, ASEAN is an intergovernmental organization due to the Southeast Asian countries’ relatively recent decolonization and yearning for sovereignty. ASEAN views each country as equal in the decision-making process and perceives negotiations as the best path forward, and their adherence to respect all Southeast Asian nations ensures their equal treatment.