This book contains the most comprehensive and critical account available of the evolution of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management.

This book contains the most comprehensive and critical account available of the evolution of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management.

Founded in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has emerged as one of the most successful regional organizations in the world. This book discusses the future of ASEAN against a backdrop of a growing US–China rivalry and the security implications of COVID-19. Chapters in this book move through a history of ASEAN and its multilateral institutions, including the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the East Asia Summit (EAS), featuring rare photographic material to contextualize both recent developments in regional security and projections for ASEAN’s prospects. Key concepts and terms are unpacked throughout, with the chapters focusing on rapidly changing international and regional environments, economic insecurities such as trade conflicts, human rights, and ASEAN identity, and providing extensive analysis of the factors challenging the principle ASEAN Centrality and the Indo-Pacific security architecture. The concept of security community frames this book, despite being subject to change if intraregional discord and institutional stagnation take hold. As a discussion of the role and future of ASEAN in a pivotal period of world history, ASEAN and Regional Order will prove vital to both students and scholars of international relations, regional organizations, and Asian studies more broadly.

ASEAN has declared its intention to create a security community in Southeast Asia that is people-orientated. This book evaluates ASEAN’s progress, and in doing so examines three matters of concern. The book firstly looks at the importance of constitutive norms to the workings of security communities, by identifying ASEAN’s constitutive norms and the extent to which they act as a help of hindrance in establishing a security community. It then moves on to how ASEAN has interpreted people-orientated as empowering civil society organisations to be community stakeholders. The book discusses the uncertainty between how ASEAN envisages their role, and the role they themselves expect to have. Civil society actors are seeking to influence what sort of community evolves and their ability to interact with the state elite is evaluated to determine what interpretation of people-oriented is likely to emerge. Thirdly, in order to make progress ASEAN has sought to achieve cooperation among its member states in functional areas. The book examines this interest in functional cooperation through case studies on human rights, HIV/AIDS and disaster management. By discussing the notion of ASEAN being people-orientated, and how it engages with ‘the people’, the book provides important insights into what type of community ASEAN in building, as well as furthering our understanding on security communities more broadly.

In line with recent reviews of policy by Aung San Suu Kyi and the U.S. Government, ASEAN's Myanmar Crisis: Challenges to the Pursuit of a Security Community provides a clear and innovative analysis of why it is necessary to reassess regional and international approaches to Myanmar. For the first time, this book also reveals the full extent to which Myanmar has challenged the solidarity and development of ASEAN itself. This is a must read for anyone interested in either Myanmar or the future ... In line with recent reviews of policy by Aung San Suu Kyi and the U.S. Government, ASEAN's Myanmar Cr.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Asia is a crucial battleground for power and influence in the international system. It is also a theater of new experiments in regional cooperation that could redefine global order. Whose Ideas Matter? is the first book to explore the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system from the perspective of local actors, with Asian regional institutions as its main focus. There's no Asian equivalent of the EU or of NATO. Why has Asia, and in particular Southeast Asia, avoided such multilateral institutions? Most accounts focus on U.S. interests and perceptions or intraregional rivalries to explain the design and effectiveness of regional institutions in Asia such as SEATO, ASEAN, and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Amitav Acharya instead foregrounds the ideas of Asian policymakers, including their response to the global norms of sovereignty and nonintervention. Asian regional institutions are shaped by contestations and compromises involving emerging global norms and the preexisting beliefs and practices of local actors. Acharya terms this perspective "constitutive localization" and argues that international politics is not all about Western ideas and norms forcing their way into non-Western societies while the latter remain passive recipients. Rather, ideas are conditioned and accepted by local agents who shape the diffusion of ideas and norms in the international system. Acharya sketches a normative trajectory of Asian regionalism that constitutes an important contribution to the global sovereignty regime and explains a remarkable continuity in the design and functions of Asian regional institutions.

Developing a framework to study "what makes a region," Amitav Acharya investigates the origins and evolution of Southeast Asian regionalism and international relations. He views the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) "from the bottom up" as not only a U.S.-inspired ally in the Cold War struggle against communism but also an organization that reflects indigenous traditions. Although Acharya deploys the notion of "imagined community" to examine the changes, especially since the Cold War, in the significance of ASEAN dealings for a regional identity, he insists that "imagination" is itself not a neutral but rather a culturally variable concept. The regional imagination in Southeast Asia imagines a community of nations different from NAFTA or NATO, the OAU, or the European Union. In this new edition of a book first published as The Quest for Identity in 2000, Acharya updates developments in the region through the first decade of the new century: the aftermath of the financial crisis of 1997, security affairs after September 2001, the long-term impact of the 2004 tsunami, and the substantial changes wrought by the rise of China as a regional and global actor. Acharya argues in this important book for the crucial importance of regionalism in a different part of the world.

This book argues that community can exist at the international level, and that security politics is profoundly shaped by it, with states dwelling within an international community having the capacity to develop a pacific disposition. By investigating the relationship between international community and the possibility for peaceful change, this book revisits the concept first pioneered by Karl Deutsch: 'security communities'. Leading scholars examine security communities in various historical and regional contexts: in places where they exist, where they are emerging, and where they are hardly detectable. Building on constructivist theory, the volume is an important contribution to international relations theory and security studies, attempting to understand the conjunction of transnational forces, state power and international organizations that can produce a security community.

This report, jointly sponsored by SIPRI and the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA), draws together the work of eight experts on armaments and Asia-Pacific security affairs to present analysis and extensive data on arms- and defence-related tranparency mechanisms in South-East Asia. It also includes a de facto arms trade re gister for South-East Asia covering the period 1975-96. The book will prove useful to security analysts and policy makers seeking analysis of and practical approaches to transparency and confidence building in South-East Asia.