ASEAN'S IMPACT ON SOUTHEAST ASIAN SECURITY. A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

• Authors: Kozlowski Piotr R.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This paper considers a possible impact of ASEAN membership on peace in the South-Asian region. The author rejects a realist paradigm which stands for the global political change as a main factor of the peace in the region, with ASEAN being only that shift's result. The author challenges this assumption, claiming after constructivists, that the regional settings of security, also these of South Asia, may and should be differentiated from global setting, and as such, have their own features and dynamics. From such a point of view the creation of ASEAN would be only an institutional affirmation of such a condition. The author perceives the ASEAN as an active entity, able to shape and diffuse some norms and values among its members (who cannot be simply identified as states, as they could be, for instance, ethnic groups). Such programs have, to some extent, alternated amiability - animosity pattern of perception and action, which was traditionally spread among South Asian governmental elites. ASEAN can be then understood as contributing to a, however long and painful, but still significant, process of community building based on values construction and sharing rather than on a traditional state power. The article provides some examples of the programs of implementation of such values and explains the way how they have prevented conflicts. The author argues that such an important shift enables ASEAN to react as a separate international entity and significant actor in world security relations. He concludes that it is not clear whereas the ASEAN formula has already reached its limits or needs to be reinvented to effectively accommodate, for example, Burma.

Keywords

EN

ASEAN AND PEACE (SOUTH-ASIAN REGION); NORMS & VALUES SHAPING

Discipline

• POLITICAL_SCIENCES: POLITICAL SCIENCES

• Publisher: Instytut Kultur Śródziemnomorskich i Orientalnych PAN
• Journal: Acta Asiatica Varsoviensia
• Year: 2006
• Issue: 19
• Pages: 23-36
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kozlowski Piotr R.

• Piotr R. Kozlowski, Uniwersytet Warszawski, Wydzial Dzienikarstwa i Nauk Politycznych, Instytut Stosunków Miedzynarodowych, ul. Zurawia 4, 00-503 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

09PLAAAA05502