This book explores elite perceptions of the external threats facing the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), drawing on Dr. Tilman's interviews with senior political, military, and intellectual leaders in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. He supplements his interviews with an examination of their writings, speeches, and other public statements, which he examines in the context of the history, geography, culture, and governmental structures of each country. He addresses the fundamental questions of the extent to which these perceptions differ and why. His focus throughout is on subjective reality--the world as it is perceived by the leadership of the ASEAN nations.

This book explores elite perceptions of the external threats facing the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), drawing on Dr. Tilman's interviews with senior political, military, and intellectual leaders in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. He supplements his interviews with an examination of their writings, speeches, and other public statements, which he examines in the context of the history, geography, culture, and governmental structures of each country. He addresses the fundamental questions of the extent to which these perceptions differ and why. His focus throughout is on subjective reality--the world as it is perceived by the leadership of the ASEAN nations.

A balanced, accessible, and authoritative account of the history of Southeast Asia from ancient to contemporary times

This study looks at factors affecting perceptions of external threats held by the leadership of each of the five ASEAN member-states. Five relevant 'dimensions' are identified (structural, geopolitical, historical, sociocultural, and economic), and the perceptions of the five states' leaders of the major external threats facing their nations are examined on these dimensions.

This landmark book provides the first comprehensive assessment of India as a political and strategic power since Indias nuclear tests, its 1999 war with Pakistan, and its breakthrough economic achievements.

This book is concerned with Western activity in the southeast Asia and the indigenous reaction to it. It deals with the traditions of the people of Southeast Asia, traditions that, apply to both urban and rural populations. The book includes the early European intrusion in insular Southeast Asia.

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 employs alternative approaches to authoritarianism, power, domination and political identity in contemporary Indonesia. It seeks to clarify the relationship between knowledge and 'real' politics. Drawing upon the thought of Edward Said and Michel Foucault, the text argues that understandings of Indonesian political life are profoundly shaped by particular approaches to culture, tradition, ethnicity, Cold War politics and modernity. Power, domination and the effects of authoritarianism on identity are key areas of discussion in this innovative and topical analysis of Indonesia and the study of its politics.

The central problem of international politics in Southeast Asia since December 1978 has been the Vietnamese armed presence in Kampuchea. The noncommunist nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have insisted that Vietnam withdraw from Kampuchea; the Vietnamese, perceiving a threat from the PRC and an ASEAN-sponsored Khmer resistance, maintain that the situation is irreversible. The contributors discuss the conflict from the point of view of all parties involved (ASEAN, Vietnam, the PRC, the USSR, and the U.S.) and assess various strategies for its resolution.