Comparing organisational and alternative regional citizenships: the case of ‘Entrepreneurial regional citizenship’ in ASEAN

ABSTRACT

Researchers have increasingly investigated emerging regional citizenships outside the European Union, including in Southeast Asia, South America and West Africa. Their accounts have, however, largely focused on efforts by regional organisations to promote a regional identity and enhance mobility. This article applies a broader comparative framework disaggregating regional citizenship into six constitutive elements. The approach enables a more comprehensive analysis of the nature and shape of emerging organisational citizenship regimes, the identification of potentially significant alternatives, and more systematic comparisons of both across global regions. It is applied first in identifying a duties-centric, top-down and developmental conception of citizenship implicit in recent communications to ‘ASEAN citizens’ by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That conception is compared to alternatives, including one implicit in Amitav Acharya’s model of participatory regionalism, and one drawn from field work among regionally networked, digitally focused social entrepreneurs within ASEAN states. The latter indicate a conception which is duties centric but also foregrounds entrepreneurs’ potential for agency and leadership in regional development. We close with a discussion of different practical challenges, related to different elements of citizenship, each conception faces, and the potential for alternatives such as entrepreneurial regional citizenship to influence emergent organisational regimes.

KEYWORDS:

• Comparative regional citizenship
• ASEAN
• social entrepreneurship
• comparative regionalism
• participatory regionalism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Weinrich (2020), discussed below, focuses on some additional variables.

2 Weinrich quotes one interviewee, ASEAN Foundation Executive Director Elaine Tan, using the term ‘ASEAN citizens’, but she does not discuss ways in which its use is being promoted or operationalized by the organization.

3 Cabrera (2020) employs a version of the rubric presented here, but one focused on norms, practices and institutions of global citizenship.

4 ASEAN members include Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

5 How far the ASEAN Way rhetoric has matched governance reality, in terms of genuinely consensual decision processes and the observance of non-interference norms by relatively powerful states in the region, has been questioned by some researchers (Jones 2012, 89–98; Bal and Gerard 2018). They do not, however, challenge a view of ASEAN as elite-driven and non-transparent (see Gerard 2015).

6 Weinrich’s analysis also highlights the ASEAN Way as centrally informing an emergent ASEAN citizenship (2020, 11), though again she does not consider direct organizational statements about ASEAN citizenship. She deduces the ASEAN Way’s relevance from its rhetorical centrality to the organization in general.

7 The World Bank (2020) lists Singapore with the highest gross national income (GNI) per capita in ASEAN, at USD 92,150 per annum. Oil-rich Brunei Darussalam, population 428,000, registers next at USD 62,820, Malaysia $27,000, Thailand $17,650, Indonesia $11,290, Philippines $9980, Laos $7410, Vietnam $7230, Myanmar $4860, and Cambodia $3970.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government [grant number AACs17052].

Notes on contributors

Luis Cabrera

Luis Cabrera is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Griffith Asia Institute and School of Government and International Relations at Griffith University. He has published widely on the theory and practice of regional and global citizenship, as well as migration and regional and global governance and accountability. His most recent monograph is The Humble Cosmopolitan: Rights, Diversity, and Trans-State Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).

Caitlin Byrne

Professor Caitlin Byrne is Director of the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University and a Faculty Fellow of the University of Southern California’s Centre for Public Diplomacy (CPD). She has published widely on Australian diplomacy, with a special interest in Australia’s engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. Her recent research projects explore the role of leadership, soft power and public diplomacy-including people-to-people connections developed through international education, culture and sport-in developing Australia’s regional influence, relationships and reputation.