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ABSTRACT
This article tracks the European Union’s efforts at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF), from 2004 to 2008, to encourage Myanmar directly or indirectly to engage in security cooperation. It, then, explores Myanmar and ASEAN's reactions to the devastation caused by Cyclone Nargis to Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta in 2008. It focuses on ARF as a forum whereby interactions take place. It examines whether the complementary of the analytical variables provided by the logic of consequences and appropriateness [March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P., 1998. The institutional dynamics of international political orders. Oslo, Arena Working Paper No. 5; 2004. The logic of appropriateness. Oslo, Arena Working Paper No. 9], social mechanisms [Checkel, J., 1999. Social construction and integration. Journal of European public policy, 6 (4), 545–560.] and observations derived from interviews (Southeast Asia and Brussels) can explain ASEAN and Myanmar’s reactions and, also, the EU’s behaviour in relation to the Myanmar-Nargis event. The EU’s role is explored through the co-chair’s summary reports of the meetings that the EU co-chaired with ASEAN. The article uncovers the EU’s efforts to encourage ASEAN to take up responsibilities and Myanmar to accept multilateral security options. It argues that, as the EU tried to inspire Myanmar to connect with cooperation, “Myanmar hit by Cyclone Nargis” motivated the EU Council to include the "responsibility to protect" as a new goal of the European foreign and security policy of December 2008.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to Michael Sander, Flavia Jurje, Arno Hold, Marwa Daoudy, Giovanni Arcudi, Hideky Hayashi and in particular Linda Hantrais for their comments on a previous version of this research, in addition to the two anonymous referees for their inspiring questionings.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Ludovica Marchi (pen name of Ludovica Marchi Balossi-Restelli) is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for International Studies of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her present research focuses on the European Union's external relations and attitude to Myanmar. She taught at the University of Mandalay (Myanmar, July 2014), has held a visiting research position at Singapore Management University (Jan–Feb 2014) and has been teaching assistant at the University of Cambridge (Geography). She has authored, edited and co-edited books, and has published in several peer-reviewed journals which include the Australian and New Zealand Journal of European Studies (see: http://www.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/Experts/[email protected]).
Notes
1. The investigation pays no attention to the EU's efforts to encourage Myanmar to compromise, or to connect with cooperation in the area of security, both up to the current position. It offers no hint at other frameworks of security consultation in Asia with which the EU might be involved. It includes no focus on the participants in the ARF other than the ASEAN group, Myanmar and the EU; on the ARF in terms of assessing its operation, on the domestic level of analysis and the decision-making processes.
2. For a detailed description of ARF's activities, see the ARF Concept Paper, 1995 (ARF-CP, Citation1995).
3. Conflict prevention included that range of actions intended to anticipate and deter the outburst of conflict (CitationEPLO).
4. For OSCE's attributes, see Galbreath and Brosing (Citation2013, pp. 275–78).
5. For an account of ASEAN's dealing with Cyclone Nargis, see Haacke (Citation2008, pp. 370–73).
6. For a discussion of the factors complicating the responsibility to protect's implementation in the Asia-Pacific region, see Weber (Citation2013b, pp. 29–31).
7. However, ASEAN was engaged in building a security community among its members, including Myanmar (Acharya Citation2001), and the EU-OSCE's experience of cooperation could offer inputs to the Association's security community project.
8. Southeast Asian security policy analyst (G), questioned in Singapore (February 2014), believed that the intervention in Indonesia's Aceh region, in collaboration with the EU, in 2005, was of support to ASEAN's new initiative. The commentator suggested that the Aceh Monitoring Mission served as a formative preparation. It facilitated the institution of the Humanitarian Task Force and the TCG to organise the aid work which focused help entirely on Myanmar (Interview (G), Citation2014).