Managing Great Power Politics: ASEAN, Institutional Strategy, and the South China Sea (Global Political Transitions)

This Open Access book explains ASEAN’s strategic role in managing great power politics in East Asia. Constructing a theory of institutional strategy, this book argues that the regional security institutions in Southeast Asia, ASEAN and ASEAN-led institutions have devised their own institutional strategies vis-à-vis the South China Sea and navigated the great-power politics since the 1990s. ASEAN proliferated new security institutions in the 1990s and 2000s that assumed a different functionality, a different geopolitical scope, and thus a different institutional strategy. In so doing, ASEAN formed a “strategic institutional web” that nurtured a quasi-division of labor among the institutions to maintain relative stability in the South China Sea. Unlike the conventional analysis on ASEAN, this study disaggregates “ASEAN” as a collective regional actor into specific individual institutions―ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, ASEAN Summit, ASEAN-China dialogues, ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus―and explains how each of these institutions has devised and/or shifted its institutional strategy to curb great powers’ ambition in dominating the South China Sea while navigating great power competition. The book sheds light on the strategic potential and limitations of ASEAN and ASEAN-led security institutions, offers implications for the future role of ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific region, and provides an alternative understanding of the strategic utilities of regional security institutions. Preface Role of Regional Security Institutions Under Power Shifts Acknowledgments Praise for Managing Great Power Politics Contents List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction: ASEAN’s Strategic Utility Redefined References 2 The Concept of Institutional Strategy and Change 2.1 Theoretical Approach: Agent-Centered Historical Institutionalism 2.2 Conceptual and Theoretical Framework of Institutional Strategy 2.3 Methodology References 3 Four Phases of South China Sea Disputes 1990–2020 3.1 First Phase: Framing the Disputes (1990–2002) 3.1.1 1990–1996: The Emerging SCS Issue in the Post-Cold War Era 3.1.2 1997–2002: Asian Financial Crisis and Road to DOC 3.1.3 Major Strategic Events in the SCS, 1990–2002 3.2 Second Phase: Emergence of Turbulence (2003–2012) 3.2.1 2003–2008: Turbulence After Tranquility 3.2.2 2009–2011: Revitalized Rivalry 3.2.3 The 2012 Scarborough Shoal Incident 3.2.4 Major Strategic Events in the SCS, 2003–2012 3.3 Third Phase: Nurturing a “New Normal” (2013–2016) 3.3.1 2013–2015: Legal and Military Confrontation 3.3.2 2016: SCS Arbitral Award 3.3.3 Major Strategic Events in the SCS, 2013–2016 3.4 Fourth Phase: Search for a New Equilibrium (2017–2020) 3.4.1 2017–2019: Road to COC 3.4.2 2020: COVID-19 Disruption and Re-emergence of Legal Debates 3.4.3 Major Strategic Events in the SCS, 2017–2020 References 4 Institutional Strategies of ASEAN/ASEAN-Led Institutions 4.1 ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) 4.1.1 1990–2002: Formulating Institutional Balancing 4.1.2 2003–2012: Limitations of the AMM’s Institutional Balancing 4.1.3 2013–2016: The AMM’s New Modus Operandi 4.1.4 2017–2020: The AMM in a Fallback Position 4.1.5 Conclusion 4.2 ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 4.2.1 1994–2002: CBMs as Potential Institutional Hedging 4.2.2 2003–2012: Attempted Enhancement of Institutional Hedging 4.2.3 2013–2016: Fragmenting Institutional Hedging 4.2.4 2017–2020: Weakening Institutional Hedging 4.2.5 Conclusion 4.3 ASEAN Summit 4.3.1 1992–2002: Limited Institutional Balancing 4.3.2 2003–2012: Failed Enhancement of Institutional Balancing 4.3.3 2013–2016: Dilemma Over Institutional Balancing 4.3.4 2017–2020: Supporting Role Through Institutional Balancing 4.3.5 Conclusion 4.4 ASEAN–China Dialogues 4.4.1 1991–2002: From CBMs to Institutional Hedging to Institutional Co-option 4.4.2 2003–2012: Weakening Effectiveness of Institutional Co-option and Hedging 4.4.3 2013–2016: Revitalizing Institutional Co-option 4.4.4 2017–2020: Consolidating Institutional Co-option 4.4.5 Conclusion 4.5 East Asia Summit (EAS) 4.5.1 2005–2012: Toward Institutional Hedging 4.5.2 2013–2016: Fall of Institutional Hedging 4.5.3 2017–2020: Debilitating Institutional Hedging 4.5.4 Conclusion 4.6 ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) 4.6.1 2006–2012: Toward Institutional Balancing 4.6.2 2013–2016: ADMM’s Institutional Balancing and ADMM-Plus’ Institutional Co-option 4.6.3 2017–2020: Institutional Hedging Through ADMM and ADMM-Plus 4.6.4 Conclusion References 5 Conclusion: Future Implications of ASEAN’s Institutional Strategies References Index