ASEAN as a Method

Re-centering Processes and Institutions in Contemporary Southeast Asian Regionalism

Ceren Ergenç, Ceren Ergenç

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000200911
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: History
• Sous-sujet: Asian History

This edited volume proposes that an understanding of ASEAN – its development and institutionalization – is invaluable to our conception of international relations theory in the Asian context.

Southeast Asia and ASEAN host peoples, ideas, institutions, and relations that contribute to a critical reassessment of theories in social sciences. In the field of IR, studies on transnational networks, diasporas, small states, middle powers, the role of history, and identity learn from Southeast Asian practices. ASEAN has long been established as an authoritative example of alternative ways of regional institutionalization. Besides empirical analysis, these fields can also benefit from their interactions with regional scholarly communities. This edited book offers an opportunity for a dialogue among scholarly communities on a variety of issues of which Southeast Asia and ASEAN provide ample opportunities for a critical analysis.

This book will be of great interest to scholars of ASEAN, the broader Asian region, and for scholars of regionalism in general.

Part I
International and regional regimes

1ASEAN in regional environmental governance

Bright prospects or hazy future?

Helena Varkkey, Şerif Onur Bahçecik, and Mohd Talib Latif¹

Introduction

Constructivist and liberal institutionalist analyses of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) often emphasize the active role of the organization in constructing a community in the region and facilitating the settlement of disputes among the Southeast Asian nations, especially with regard to security and economic questions. In his well-received book on ASEAN, Amitav Acharya shows how the fledgling regional association was central to the de-escalation of a territorial dispute over Sabah between Malaysia and the Philippines during 1968 and 1969.² Despite the failure of bilateral diplomacy between Malaysia and the Philippines and the suspension of diplomatic relations between the two, these countries refrained from withdrawing from ASEAN. Moreover, in line with the expectations of the liberal institutionalist perspective, “ASEAN meetings served as an important channel of communication between Malaysia and Philippines.”³ Although the dispute was not immediately resolved by the regional grouping, the concern to keep ASEAN afloat was a significant motivation for putting the Sabah issue on the back burner.

ASEAN’s activity is not limited to regional security. In the face of the unilateral handling of the 1997 Asian financial crises by Western-dominated multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the regional group started to develop its capacity in international economic relations. In late 1997, competent financial authorities from the Asia-Pacific states came together and published the Manila Framework, which called for “regional surveillance and regional financing mechanisms”⁴ to complement the IMF. ASEAN financial ministers acted on this framework and almost within a year adopted a Term of Understanding to realize a regional mechanism of financial surveillance. Consistent with the mantra of the “ASEAN Way,” it was agreed that this mechanism would be “informal, simple and based on peer review.”⁵ A small Surveillance and Coordination Unit within the Secretariat was tasked with the ASEAN Surveillance Process. Such developments are interpreted as incremental steps toward greater regional integration that will finally establish ASEAN as a powerful organization. In the meantime, they contribute to the formation of a regional identity.⁶

As can be seen from this brief overview of the “ASEAN-in-the-making” perspective, ASEAN has gained recognition as a vibrant community that responds to the problems troubling the region in its own unique way by utilizing non-coercive diplomacy and processes of consultation and dialogue. This article shifts the focus from security and economic questions to regional environmental governance to appraise ASEAN’s impact and role. In particular, we look at the question of transboundary haze, an environmental problem with significant health and biodiversity implications that closely touches the lives of people living in the ASEAN region.

In order to answer questions such as the extent to which ASEAN is able to deal with this pressing problem and inspire/enforce compliance with its norms, we utilize Ian Hurd’s “obligations, compliance and enforcement” framework.⁷ All international organizations are based on certain legal obligations assumed by member states. Although ASEAN was founded on the basis of a declaration and did not have a Secretary-General until 1976, the 2008 adoption of the ASEAN Charter gave it full legal personality and institutional existence. It is no longer merely an “association” but a regional organization with a mandate accepted by its member states. The obligations of membership constitute the need for compliance. Yet, as students of international politics are quick to point out, legal promises are not always honored in practice. As Hurd indicates, while we are often ready to recognize dramatic violations of obligations to international organizations, world politics also has routine, unspectacular, and repetitive processes. This latter aspect is often shaped and regulated by international institutions.

Finally, the issue of enforcement arises in situations where international organizations are not able to shape state behavior. Often, international organizations do not have “direct enforcement power.”⁸ The enforcement of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights by the Council of Europe or the military sanctions of the UNSC are noteworthy exceptions. The interactions between obligations, compliance, and enforcement are significant to understand the powers and nature of an international organization. Especially with the 2008 Charter and other instruments that are relevant to environmental governance, ASEAN members have created certain obligations for themselves. In what follows, we will first provide background on global environmental governance and contextualize ASEAN’s initiatives on transboundary haze. After providing some background to the haze problem we will analyze the obligations, compliance, and enforcement (if any) required by ASEAN with regard to the problem of transboundary haze. We complement Hurd’s analytical framework with a political economy perspective on the formation of regional environmental policy.

Global environmental regimes

The study of global governance can be traced back to the late 1960s. In the aftermath of the Second World War, realist understandings of world politics, which emphasized conflict of interests between nation-states, were widely accepted by students of international politics. According to the realists, cooperation in world politics could be possible only on the basis of the “political hegemony” of the United States.⁹ The international economic order was working, not because of the inherent interdependence of processes such as the international monetary system or international trade, but because it was underpinned by the United States. With the decline of “the relative economic predominance of the United States”¹⁰ in the 1970s, however, scholars clustering around the journal International Organization emphasized the demand for international regimes defined as “principles, norms, rules and decision-making mechanisms”¹¹ in specific issue-areas. From the institutionalist perspective, international rules did not always require the backing of a political hegemon. Rationally acting nation-states demanded a rule-bound international system because cooperation in the international monetary system and international trade, and so on, was in their interests.

From the 1970s on, a significant part of the research agenda of institutionalist scholars focused on international regimes established for the protection of the environment.¹² Scholars were quick to recognize that the nature of the problem in environmental protection differed from other issue-areas in certain respects.¹³ Protection of the environment posed problems of effectiveness: on the one hand, there was no central and comprehensive international organization specializing in creating norms and implementing programs for the protection of the environment. On the other hand, environmental damage was largely a result of activities such as economic development and hence not “intentionally created,”¹⁴ making prevention more difficult. Research on international environmental affairs continued in the 1980s but as Michael Zürn contends, in this “first generation of studies,”¹⁵ scholars emphasized the links between environmental issues on the one hand and economic and security issues on the other. It was as if studies on the environment were relevant only to the extent that they were related to high politics issues.

In the early 1990s there was a sense of transition into a new epoch of human history not only among students of international politics, but also in the political class. James N. Rosenau was highlighting the new urgency of “questions about the nature of order and governance,”¹⁶ while the Commission on Global Governance cited “opportunities created by the end of the cold war for enhanced co-operation.”¹⁷ The notion of global governance reflected attempts to introduce market-based authorities to the management of international problems, and to expand the role of non-state actors such as international organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in world politics.¹⁸ This notion of global governance was also adapted to the study of international environmental affairs; global environmental governance denoted a “multiactor” conjecture that included private actors, corporations, and international organizations.¹⁹

Overall, international organizations have six different functions in global governance. They provide information, act as forums for bargaining, define international norms, and turn these norms into legal rules. Moreover, international organizations may monitor compliance and act as operational entities that provide services or resources.²⁰ Regional environmental regimes such as the one constructed around transboundary air pollution in the ASEAN region constitute a linkage between national authorities and global organizations.²¹ While global organizations such as the United Nations are significant in terms of providing an overall normative framework (e.g. putting forward the notion of sustainable development), regional organizations such as ASEAN may benefit from a limited number of member countries. As members increase, it becomes more difficult to achieve consensus on various aspects of environmental gov...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: ASEAN after 50: historical, theoretical, and regional perspectives
• Part I International and regional regimes
• Part II Regional relations
• Index