Charting waters: the private sector’s evolving governance role in Southeast Asian maritime security

ABSTRACT

Southeast Asian states are frequently viewed as jealously guarding their sovereignty and unwilling to delegate authority to multilateral organisations or private actors. In the contemporary response to regional piracy and armed robbery at sea (PAR), however, insurers and shippers have come to occupy a central governance role while the fortunes of private security actors (PSAs) have declined. Why? This paper conducts a qualitative case study analysis examining the evolving role of shipping and insurance companies and PSAs in the development and implementation of anti-PAR policies in Southeast Asia today. It argues that while the role of PSAs has diminished due to growing regional governance capacities, regional countries and multilateral regulatory frameworks have enlisted insurers and shippers as governance stakeholders, elevating them from beneficiaries of good order at sea to active shapers of this maritime order. The diverging experiences of PSAs and insurers/shippers demonstrate that the regulatory power relationship between states and private actors is not necessarily zero-sum as the role of insurers and shippers has grown even as state capacities have expanded. Ultimately, the paper illustrates the need to go beyond state- and PSA-centric analyses of maritime governance mechanisms in contemporary Southeast Asia.

KEYWORDS:

• Southeast Asia
• maritime security
• ocean governance
• piracy
• private sector

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 ASEAN has ten members: Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Brunei. Timor-Leste was given in-principle admission to the organisation in late 2022.

2 The LMA is a London-based insurance and reinsurance market that does not provide insurance itself but regulates components of the insurance market for its members, for instance by raising insurance premiums for markets characterized by a high degree of economic volatility.

3 The non-Southeast Asian signatories to ReCAAP are Australia, Bangladesh, China, Denmark, Germany, India, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the US.

4 No data available for the S&CS between 2004 and 2012.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron Magunna

Aaron Magunna is a PhD student at the University of Queensland in Australia. His research focuses on how countries in Asia respond to China–US competition by adapting their security, trade, and technology policies. Aaron holds a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and worked in the think tank sector before re-entering academia.