ASEAN and regional governance after the Cold War: from regional order to regional community?

Abstract

This paper first reviews and critiques the dominant realist and constructivist accounts of ASEAN, which have enjoyed much prominence in The Pacific Review since the journal's founding in 1988. ASEAN behaviour and outcomes cannot be fitted into neat theoretical categories that emphasize either material or ideational variables in explanation. Instead, ASEAN displays complexities in behaviour that are the product of the contingent interaction between the material (power, territory, wealth) and the ideational (norms, ideas, identity) as member states actively seek to manage domestic order as well as regional order within and beyond ASEAN. In all of this, state interests and identities remain paramount, which means that the long-standing ASEAN norms of sovereignty/non-interference remain central to regional governance. Under these conditions, and despite the Charter's newly articulated political norms of democratization, human rights, and the rule of law, the prospects seem doubtful for building a people-centred ASEAN Community in which regional governance displays inclusiveness, seeking to address the interests and needs of the region's ordinary people as opposed to what its elites deem appropriate. The final portion of the paper explores what a critical approach to studying ASEAN might reveal. In particular, the paper attempts to identify whether there may be any political spaces opening up within existing structures and practices from which progressive change could emerge, even if slowly, particularly in the area of human rights and social justice, key elements in building an inclusive, ASEAN Community.

Keywords:

• ASEAN Community
• realism
• constructivism
• critical perspective
• human rights
• social justice

Notes

1. Formed in 1967, ASEAN's founding members are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei joined the grouping in 1984 following its independence from Britain, Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar (Burma) in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999.

2. See Lee Jones (2007) for a ‘revisionist’ account of ASEAN's highly interventionist role in this episode and the grouping's key role in influencing the way the international community responded to the problem and in shaping many elements of the final peace settlement.

3. The PMC, initiated in 1978, is the platform for ASEAN's formal engagement with outside states.

4. Other journals that have seen extended debates on ASEAN include International Relations of the Asia-Pacific and Contemporary Southeast Asia. In addition, disciplinary-oriented journals in the broad field of International Studies such as International Organization, Review of International Studies, Cambridge Journal of International Studies, Journal of Peace Research, and Pacific Affairs have also published theoretically informed pieces on ASEAN.

5. Many of these critiques are also found in The Pacific Review.

6. Early book-length works on ASEAN include Antolik (1990), Jorgensen-Dahl (1982) and Leifer (1989). Recent works include Acharya (2001), Caballero-Anthony (2005), Emmers (2003) and Narine (2002). See Nesadurai (2003) for a book-length work on ASEAN economic regionalism.

7. On critical theory and international relations, see Wyn Jones (2001).

8. Realist critiques of constructivist scholarship on ASEAN include Jones and Smith (2002), Khoo (2004) and Leifer (1999, 2001), while Narine (2004) provides an interpretation of regional institutions such as ASEAN from the perspective of subaltern realism. Constructivist counter-responses to these realist critiques include Acharya (2005), Ba (2005) and Peou (2002), while other critiques of constructivist-inspired analyses of ASEAN include Narine (2006), coming from the English School of IR, Collins (2007), writing from a regime theory perspective, and Tan's (2006) critical theory approach.

9. In a security community, war is unthinkable between members as a means of addressing disputes, while feelings of mutual trust, solidarity and ‘we-feeling’ or other-regarding behaviour become entrenched and serve to reinforce community bonds.

10. For Leifer, the primary instrument through which order is created and sustained is a balance of power, following closely in the English School tradition of Hedley Bull (1977).

11. See Kivimäki (2001: 7).

12. Nischalke (2002: 110) records ASEAN's relatively high degree of compliance with the ASEAN norms during 1988–98.

13. While APT groups together the ten ASEAN states and China, Japan and South Korea, the EAS adds to these thirteen members Australia, New Zealand and India, making for a sixteen-member grouping. On the genesis of APT, see Stubbs (2002).

14. I am indebted to Richard Stubbs for pointing this out to me with reference to the Australian position on the TAC.

15. Alice Ba (2006: 175) acknowledges, however, that both parties in these interactive processes may be changed as a result, noting in the context of ASEAN–China socialization processes that ‘engagement works both ways, which means that ASEAN, too, is unlikely to be left unchanged from the process’.

16. See Wendt (1999: 316).

17. On these novel forms of authority and governance, see Sassen (2008).

18. For details of these, see Nesadurai (2003).

19. The AEC blueprint also endorses flexible modes of implementation for regional economic integration through the ‘ASEAN Minus X’ formula, where smaller subsets of member states will be able to accelerate their regional liberalization commitments in various policy areas even if other members are not ready to do so.

20. On the role of discourse in structuring reality, see Mills (2003).

21. Buzan is writing in the English School tradition of IR, which differentiates between the inter-state system, international society and world society. The international society of states can be further distinguished into a pluralist version, where survival and co-existence of states is the paramount goal, and a solidarist version, where common values are pursued. See Buzan (2004: 139–60).

22. This condition was reviewed the following year. Now, states are only required to undertake the less demanding task of establishing national focal points for human rights rather than formal commissions (Medina 2005: 112).

23. See the website of the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM); accessed at www.suhakam.org.my/en/about_history.asp, 4 April 2008.

24. The Indonesian Commission was set up in 1993 on the urging of Foreign Minister Ali-Alatas, to which President Suharto agreed as a way of shoring up his credentials, as well as that of Indonesia (see Mohamad 2002). In the case of Malaysia, its appointment to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) in 1993–95 (and for two further terms since then) and the election of the leader of the Malaysian delegation as chairman of the 52nd session of the UNCHR also aided the establishment of the national commission (SUHAKAM) in 1999. See SUHAKAM's website. The domestic and international fallout from then Prime Minister Mahathir's sacking and imprisonment of his deputy, Anwar Ibrahim, also promoted the Malaysian authorities to set up SUHAKAM as a way of regaining domestic and international credibility (see Mohamad 2002).

25. There were also local discourses that articulated notions of human rights from particular religious and cultural perspectives. See Kraft (2001).

26. See the website of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism (www.aseanhrmech.org).

27. See Mohamad (2002) for detailed accounts.

28. Bernama (Malaysian National News Agency), ‘Suhakam hopes MPs will debate issues on human rights in Parliament’, 3 April 2008.

29. Although there are a vast number of civil society organizations in the ASEAN region, the APA and SAPA/ACSC are the two that actively engage with ASEAN, focus on ASEAN issues and aim to develop more formal links with the Association. See Chandra (2008).

30. Personal communication from one of the convenors of the APA.

31. For a history of ASEAN-ISIS, see Soesastro et al. (2006).

32. On Habermas and the notion of open dialogue, see Diez and Steans (2005).

33. Personal communication from one of the convenors of the annual APA meetings.

34. Labour groups were also excluded from the consultative processes that took place between regional civil society and the drafters of the 2007 ASEAN Charter.