Regionalism has been an important force in international relations since 1945. The aim of this article is to make an assessment of one of the major regional organisations from the Asia Pacific, the ASEAN, or Association of South East Asian Nations. The article attempts to give readers an overview of the problems and prospects of the ASEAN. Although the ASEAN has been successful to a large extent as a regional body, regionalism in South East Asia has been considerably undermined by a number of factors since its creation in 1967. However, in the final analysis, it has been argued that with increasing democratising tendencies in the region and with increasing economic liberalisation, the ASEAN seems to have a bright future.