(Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia: Region, Regionalism, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Studies in Asian Security)

This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms. "This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms."--Publisher description Contents 10 Acknowledgments 12 In-Text Abbreviations 14 Introduction 18 Part One: Theory and Origins 32 1. The ASEAN Paradox and IR Theory 34 2. Why ASEAN? Why 1967? 59 3. The Ideas That Bind: Negotiating ASEAN’s Ways 83 Part Two: ASEAN’s New Regionalisms 118 4. The Politics and Rhetoric of “One Southeast Asia” 120 5. Locating ASEAN in East Asia and the Asia Pacific 149 6. ASEAN of and Beyond Southeast Asia: The ASEANRegional Forum 176 7. Renegotiating East Asia: “The Idea That Will Not Go Away” 210 Conclusion 240 Abbreviations Used in Notes and Bibliography 266 Notes 268 Bibliography 306 Index 328 The ASEAN paradox and IR theory Why ASEAN? Why 1967? The ideas that bind : negotiating ASEAN's ways The politics and rhetoric of "one Southeast Asia" Locating ASEAN in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific ASEAN of and beyond Southeast Asia : renegotiating ASEAN's role for a post-cold war Asia Renegotiating East Asia : the "idea that will not go away." Seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This work demonstrates how the critical causal connections that underpin Southeast Asian regionalism are both a necessary response to regional problems, and yet ultimately constrain ASEAN's defining informality and consensus-seeking process.