Provides a comparative sketch of regional cooperation in South and Southeast Asia in the light of various political, economic and social developments in the two regions.
Since 2019, Network of ASEAN-China Think-tanks (NACT) has been publishing joint researches of all its Working Groups. This book is a collection of research papers contributed by ASEAN and China scholars.This book is published at a time of growing debate in the region over connectivity. The contributing scholars provide their ingenious and insightful thoughts from either a national or regional perspective. The book also contains Working Group Report that include innovative and practical policy recommendations on strengthening the connectivity between ASEAN and China.
Regional institutions are an increasingly prominent feature of world politics. Their characteristics and performance vary widely: some are highly legalistic and bureaucratic, while others are informal and flexible. They also differ in terms of inclusiveness, decision-making rules and commitment to the non-interference principle. This is the first book to offer a conceptual framework for comparing the design and effectiveness of regional international institutions, including the EU, NATO, ASEAN, OAS, AU and the Arab League. The case studies, by a group of leading scholars of regional institutions, offer a rigorous, historically informed analysis of the differences and similarities in institutions across Europe, Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Africa. The chapters provide a more theoretically and empirically diverse analysis of the design and efficacy of regional institutions than heretofore available.
This report analyzes how closer regional connectivity and economic integration between South Asia and Southeast Asia can benefit both regions, with a focus on the role played by infrastructure and public policies in facilitating this process. It examines major developments in South Asian–Southeast Asian trade and investment, economic cooperation, the role of economic corridors, and regional cooperation initiatives. In particular, it identifies significant opportunities for strengthening these integration efforts as a result of the recent opening up of Myanmar in political, economic, and financial terms. This is particularly the case for land-based transportation—highways and railroads—and energy trading. The report’s focus is on connectivity in a broad sense, covering both hardware and software, including investment in infrastructure, energy trading, trade facilitation, investment financing, and support for national and regional policies.
Myanmar was admitted to ASEAN in 1997, despite an allegedly poor human rights record. This text discusses the formation and evolution of ASEAN with an overview of the political and economic development of Myanmar. It analyses the political, security and economic impact and implications for Myanmar; key ASEAN agreements are included for reference.
The book examines ASEAN's mechanisms in managing challenges and threats to regional security. Its extensive analyses of the ASEAN story of managing regional security cover the different phases of ASEAN's development as a regional organization and explore the perceptible changes that have occurred in regional mechanisms of conflict management. The book also examines the roles of relevant actors beyond the states of ASEAN and the key interactions that have evolved over time, which have been instrumental in moving regional mechanisms beyond the ASEAN way. The book argues that the ASEAN way has not been impervious to change. As the association finds its way through periods of crises and continues to confront the many challenges ahead, ASEAN and its mechanisms are already being transformed beyond the narrow confines of the modalities associated with the ASEAN way. The changes in the political and security landscape of the region, as well as the democratic transitions taking place in some member states, have set the stage for a much more dynamic set of regional actors and processes that bring into question the kind of regionalism that is now taking place in the region. the way regionalism is changing in Southeast Asia.
One of the most challenging environmental threats to the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been the haze, the sickening and deadly cloud of smoky pollution caused by widespread burning of land and forests in Indonesia. This book examines both the threat and response to it by analysing environmental cooperation in Southeast Asia from an international regime perspective. Tracing the development of regional cooperation on the haze and evaluating the effectiveness of the cooperation, the author argues that the haze crisis, combined with the economic crisis of 1997, has profoundly challenged the ASEAN modus operandi, and resulted in ASEAN’s efforts to establish an environmental regime to cope with environmental challenges. The emerging ASEAN haze regime is a unique case study of a regional environmental institution in multi-levelled global environmental governance. Based on in-depth original research, this case study is integrated into international relations, political science, and comparative political analysis literatures and contributes to a better understanding of processes within the regional organisation.
The Nixon or Guam Doctrine of 1969 stressed the importance of progress towards regional cooperation and Asian collective security, indicating that Asian countries themselves should take the initiative in creating programs in which the United States could participate. This book analyses the development of United States regional cooperation policy on Southeast Asia and its importance to long-term planning for the region that had been the general aim of successive American post-war administrations. The author demonstrates the link between economic regional cooperation and collective security in Southeast Asia, placing regionalism in an international context by examining the influence United States policy and various important events had on the development of Southeast Asian regionalism. Through the analysis of primary material, including previously classified material, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and engagement with historiography of war and peace in Southeast Asia, the book puts forward the argument that Southeast Asian regional cooperation was influenced by both American and Asian policy and its development reflected the economic and political transformation of the post-war Southeast Asian landscape. It also examines the developments in British and Australian policy and how developments in Southeast Asia influenced and, in turn, were affected by the policies of the Western powers. Adding to the current discourse concerning the origins of Southeast Asian regionalism, this book will be of interest to academics in the field of Southeast Asian studies, United States political history, international relations and regionalism.
The formation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967 was originally driven by political and security concerns. In the decades that followed, ASEAN's scope evolved to include an ambitious and progressive economic agenda. In December 2015, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was formally launched. Although AEC has enjoyed some notable successes, the vision of economic integration is yet to be fully realized. This publication reviews the evolution of ASEAN economic integration and assesses the major achievements. It also examines the challenges that emerged during the past decade and provides recommendations on how to overcome them.