The Association of Southeast Nations : why has ASEAN agreed to new principles that conflict with their founding norms?

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Masters Thesis: Political Science -‐ International Relations University of Amsterdam: Graduate School of Social Sciences Supervisor: Sara Kendall

June 2014

The Association of Southeast

Nations

Why has ASEAN agreed to new principles that

conflict with their founding norms?

Charles Merritt

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Abstract

The Association of Southeast Asian nations are a regional organisation that comprises of ten nations. ASEAN pays homage to its core founding norms of the ‘ASEAN Way’ and the

fundamental norm of non-‐interference. These norms have historically caused some difficulties to the organisation with its refusal to comment on issues within Myanmar, this led to criticism by some Western states. Despite the importance of these norms, recently ASEAN have developed new principles and norms that could be seen to violate the founding norms. ASEAN now has a human rights commission and a charter that has introduced clauses to allow states to resolve and criticise their fellow members. Social constructivism is a theory that has been successfully applied to ASEAN through its study of norms. Rational choice theory can be seen to be its conflicting counterpart, with its emphasis on states maximising their own gains. Scholars have argued that these theories should integrate more as they share some similarities and they are both social theories, and in some other areas a rational constructivist theory has been successfully applied, although there is a research gap in applying a combination of these theories to ASEAN. This thesis uses this combined theory as a social ‘lens’ to explore the reasoning behind why new principles are agreed upon. We conclude that ASEAN states are agreeing to these new norms and this could be due to the states wishing to maximise their own gains.

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The Flag of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN)

Source: ASEAN Website (2014a)

Map of the ASEAN State Members

Source: Nextupasia (2014)

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A Table Showing Information for the Members of ASEAN

Data Source: CIA World Factbook (2014b)

(*) Estimation made by the CIA for 2012 in US Dollars. / (**) Since 2011. / (***) Original ASEAN Member.

ASEAN State Religion Independence

Year Government Type of GDP PER CAPITA*

Laos Joined: 1997 Buddhist 67%/ Christian 1.5%/ Other &Unspecified 31.5% (2005 census) France gave Independence in 1953 Communist State $3,100 Cambodia Joined: 1999 Buddhist (official) 96.4%/ Muslim 2.1%/ Other 1.3%/ Unspecified 0.2% (1998 census) France gave Independence in 1953 Constitutional Monarchy $2,400 Brunei Darussalam Joined: 1984 Muslim (official) 67%/ Buddhist 13%/ Christian 10%/ Other (includes indigenous beliefs) 10% UK gave Independence in 1959 Absolute Monarchy $55,300 Myanmar Joined: 1997 Buddhist 89%/ Christian 4%/ Muslim 4%/Animist 1%/ Other 2% UK gave Independence in 1948 Parliamentary Government ** $1,400 Singapore Joined: 1967 *** Buddhist 42.5%/Muslim 14.9%/ Taoist 8.5%/ Hindu 4%/Catholic 4.8%/ Other Christian 9.8%/ Other 0.7%/ None 14.8% (2000 census) UK gave Independence in 1963 Republic $61,400 Vietnam Joined: 1995 Buddhist 9.3% /Catholic 6.7%/ Hoa Hao 1.5%/ Cao Dai 1.1%/Protestant 0.5%/ Muslim 0.1%/None 80.8% (1999 census) France gave Independence in 1954 Communist State $3,600 Philippines Joined: 1967 *** Catholic 82.9%/Muslim 5%/ Evangelical 2.8%/Iglesia ni Kristo 2.3%/ Other Christian 4.5%/ Other 1.8%/ Unspecified 0.6%/ None 0.1% (2000 census) USA gave Independence in 1946 Republic $4,500 Thailand Joined: 1967 *** Buddhist (official) 94.6%/ Muslim 4.6%/ Christian 0.7%/ Other 0.1% (2000 census) Constitutional Monarchy $10,300 Indonesia Joined: 1967 *** Muslim 86.1%/ Protestant 5.7%/Roman Catholic/ 3% Hindu 1.8%/ Other & Unspecified 3.4% (2000 census) Netherlands gave Independence in 1949 Republic $5,100 Malaysia Joined: 1967 ***

Muslim (official) 60.4%/ Buddhist 19.2%/ Christian 9.1%/ Hindu 6.3% Confucianism, Taoism, other traditional Chinese

religions 2.6%/ Other or unknown 1.5%/ None 0.8% (2000 Census) UK gave Independence in 1826 Constitutional Monarchy $17,200

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1.0 Introduction

1.1 Origins and the recent development of new principles in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

The post-‐colonial period saw former colonist nations leave the Asian region, this caused a new form of hierarchal competition between the states, for the Asian region had “no hegemon” (Simon, 2008, p.266) to take the lead in the region. This new era of

unknowingness after many years of external control and internal interference caused newfound regional issues being addressed through “collective action” (Simon, 2008, p.266). Asian nations have openly cooperated through many different regional organisations in the region such as the Asia-‐Pacific Economic Cooperation, or they made pacts with other nations such as the USA in order to guarantee their own security. One of the most successful regional organisations in Asia was to be termed the Association of Southeast Asian nations (to be referred to hereafter as ASEAN), which was established in 1967 in Bangkok by five founding member states, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Singapore, over the years this was to increase to ten member states. ASEAN was to develop its own permanent secretariat in Jakarta, Indonesia, and create the post of the Secretary-‐ General of ASEAN to oversee the organisation. More recently ASEAN has developed its own Charter outlining the rules and governance of the organisation.

Originally ASEAN’s development was the result of worries and a concern over the raising security fear with the emergence of communism across Asia, but this was to later develop into a working environment of cooperation, in order to benefit the states and the region. ASEAN’s collective action has led to a large success for the ASEAN member states, it has allowed the nations to work together on a large amount of key issues that would have been difficult to accomplish on their own, as individual states. ASEAN has set up a large number of forums to encourage cooperation between the region’s Ministers on a range of different issues, this has included tourism with the ASEAN Tourism Ministers Meeting (M-‐ATM) which was formed in 1998, which meets annually; transport with the ASEAN Transport Ministers Meeting (ATM) which was formed in 1996 and again meets annually; to the recently formed ASEAN Ministerial meeting on Sports (AMMS) that was formed in 2011.

The large array of forums and meetings between the members states have benefited the states individually, but arguable the biggest beneficiaries have come from the less

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developed states known as the CLMV nations, this group includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The income of the CLMV nations is considerably lower then the original nations such as Singapore1_{,
but
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able to accomplish cooperation in areas such as the environment, infrastructure, education and health. The states have even begun the process to put forward a bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup; this is something that in reality nations such as Myanmar2_{could
not
afford
to
do}

on their own.

Although appearing to be a regional success, ASEAN can be seen to be far from the perfectionist image of the perfect regional body. Although ASEAN has its own Charter, it took 40 years to come into force, and as this thesis will later highlight, the road to its formation was far from easy and there have been a large number of obstacles along the way, mainly due to the issue around non-‐interference. Non-‐interference is seen to be crucial to ASEAN’s success; it is a large sensitive area for the nations, including the developing nations such as Myanmar, which can be seen to have a terrible political and human rights record. Despite the non-‐interference principle being embedded in the cultural centre of ASEAN the recent Charter has introduced a human rights clause, and a human rights intergovernmental organisation has been set up and the Charter mentions the ‘d – word’ known as democracy which again can be seen as a taboo as some of the nations such as Vietnam being a proud communist state.

The attempts to introduce a charter to promote an ASEAN identity can be celebrated by social constructivists as a way of further creating social norms that are forming ASEAN to be its own regional organisation of power. Recently questions have emerged around the building of ASEAN’s recent norms, for example, why would a communist nation such as Vietnam agree to a Charter that mentions democracy? The rational choice theory could offer some part of the explanation, with its core assumption that states seek to maximise their own gains, and that they guarantee that they bargain for the best deal for their nation. However this theory cannot offer a full picture of what is emerging, for new norms do appear to be developing and ASEAN has expanded considerably since its founding over forty years ago. Despite scholars arguing that a middle way of these two theories could be used

1_{Singapore
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GDP
PER
CAPITA
of
(US)
$61,000
(CIA
World
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(CIA,
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poorest
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the
region
with
a
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PER
CAPITA
of
(US)$1,400}

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to highlight some of the issues in ASEAN, there is sadly a distinct lack of research testing these combined theories to form a rational-‐constructivist approach.

The CLMV members

In the 1990s the post-‐Cold War period saw ASEAN “began to redefine itself… move towards its original goal of including all ten Southeast Asian countries in the organization” (Gates & Than, 2001, p.8). This was to see the expansion of ASEAN to the neighbouring states of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. These were to be referred to as the CLMV group. Vietnam was the first of the CLMV members to join ASEAN in July 1995, two years later Leo People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) and Myanmar. Cambodia’s political unsustainability with the outbreak of violence with Prime Minister Hun Sen ousting Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh, the later political stability led Cambodia to join ASEAN on 30th_April

1999. This was seen as a major “paradigm shift in Southeast Asian affairs” (Gates & Than, 2001, p.1).

As this thesis has already discussed, the ASEAN member states have benefited from this emerging supranational body of cooperation, but it can be argued that the biggest benefiters have been the CLMV nations that comprise of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. It is important to highlight this particular group of ASEAN member states, for although none of them were founding members, in comparison to Brunei Darussalam (which also was not a founder member and joined in 1984) these states transition into ASEAN has been less straightforward. These states have all been criticised by other nations and organisations such as the United Nations in the past in areas such as human rights and their government’s leadership. Myanmar has been particularly criticised by states with its tough military rule and it has only recently developed parliamentary governance in the last few years. These states have also demonstrated a reluctance to work with their neighbours and some of the nations developed an openly strong sense of suspicion towards ASEAN. Nevertheless despite these preliminary issues, these member states have now become part of the ASEAN family. Some would argue a core reason as to why these states were so willing to join ASEAN, after their initial hesitations could be due to the ‘ASEAN Way’ with its core norms of non-‐interference in internal affairs. However despite these CLMV nations being part of an organisation that so openly promotes the concept of non-‐interference, we have

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and Laos both being communist nations; the promotion of human rights, despite Myanmar having a particularly poor record. These conflictions with the recent ASEAN developments and the CLMV’s own internal policies are part of this thesis’s hypothesis that will be analysed and explored in this thesis.

Other regional organisations such as the European Union have set domestic criteria demands for all of its new members including the governmental requirement of the new states including having “stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities” (European Commission, 2013). In contrast ASEAN does not demand any “domestic adjustments” from the new members, something that the more “progressive” ASEAN member states such as “Indonesia” to be “unfortunate” (Jetschke & Murray, 2012, p.188). The CLMV relations with ASEAN shall be analysed later in this thesis, but this final point is important to understand in relation to this thesis’s research question, for member states can differ drastically in terms of their

government, economy and cultural norms. A perfect example of this is by looking at the high level of differences between the economies of the CLMV nations compared to the other nations. This can be seen in the graph bellow:

A graph showing the economic averages between the CLMV and higher developed ASEAN countries

Source: Foreign Direct Investment Statistics (ASEAN, 2012)

0.000 20,000.000 40,000.000 60,000.000 80,000.000 100,000.000 120,000.000 140,000.000 160,000.000 180,000.000 200,000.000

ASEAN Average CLMV Average Higher Developed ASEAN

Countries Average

Gross domespc product per capita

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The graph shows that older, more developed members of ASEAN have a much larger level of exports compared to the CLMV nations. This is over three times the level of CLMV’s average exports. The analysis part of this thesis shall, bare these differences in mind in order to establish why the CLMV nations have complied with the recent principles. 1.2 Conceptualising ASEAN’s norms and the importance of the non-‐interference principle

Fifty years ago, the Southeast Asian nations would have looked very different, for this was a region of interference and external governance, with all of the ASEAN members apart from Thailand being controlled by former colonial powers. Nations have only recently developed their own states, with Singapore only receiving its independence in 1965. The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, which was formed in 1976 set out some of the core principles of ASEAN, this included the non-‐interference principle. It is not surprising that after many centuries of colonial rule, the states were not willing to give up their sovereignty or be criticised by other nations and this is something that ASEAN has strictly tried to adhere to. However over the years, ASEAN has developed further and further in terms of developing economic integration with the core goal of setting up a free trade area, ASEAN has also promoted its own identity and forums have been set up to increase cultural understandings within ASEAN. In order to develop as an organisation, the original norms that have been very much at the heart of the organisation have arguably come under threat. This thesis has set the objective to explore this issue and to establish if this is the case, and if so why are states complying with these changes?

1.3 Research question & relevance

This thesis shall therefore aim and explore the following research question:

Why has ASEAN agreed to new principles that conflict with their founding norms?

As this thesis, has previously stated, the historical issues of mistrust, war, and colonial rule with some members of ASEAN, only becoming independent in the latter part of the last century, this has led ASEAN to develop its own special ‘ASEAN Way’ with the norm of non-‐ interference being particularly paramount in the organisation. Despite the founding norms ASEAN has recently appeared to develop new principles and norms, which can be seen to be contradictory to the crucial view that ASEAN states should remain strictly independent.

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This research question will be explored through the core case study of the ASEAN Charter and themes that are associated to it. The ASEAN Charter has created a legal framework for ASEAN for the first time in 40 years, and it can be seen a massive breakthrough in the development of ASEAN as a regional organisation.

The research question shall be answered through the following three sub questions: Ø Have new principles been created that conflict with founding norms?

Ø Why have these new principles emerged?

Ø What are benefits for ASEAN states to comply with the new principles?

In order to address these three areas, there will be three separate chapters to analyse specifically answer these questions in order to put forward a case for the final conclusion chapter, which shall directly answer the research question.

The third chapter shall outline what new principles have been established with a focus on the ASEAN Charter and the human rights element of this charter. This chapter shall establish what principles have been formed and how these could be seen to conflict with the founding principles of ASEAN.

The next chapter shall then establish the reasoning behind how these norms were formed, it will explore the human rights agenda and explore the reasoning behind these new principles emerging and why did states agree to these new principles and who was pushing for these changes? The second part shall explore the 2020 vision that has the goal to set up a free trade area; this will again explore how this is being set up and what are the motives that are pushing these new principles to be constructed.

The final chapter shall set out two key areas that will establish how ASEAN states are benefiting from being part of ASEAN. This will offer the reader a possible explanation to the reason why new emerging principles are being agreed upon, for states can benefit from the economic and regional security areas, which are offered from ASEAN.

This thesis shall take a social constructivist approach in order to explore the research question and the three sub-‐questions in order to explore the relevant norms in ASEAN. Rational choice theory has been successful in predicting the behaviours of states with its core assumption that states maximise their own self-‐interests. These two theories have

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been traditionally treated as individual theories as they can be seen to conflict with each other, however some scholars have argued that they could compliment each other and they could both be used to play a part in determining certain international relation issues. Despite the view that collaboration between social constructivism and rational choice theory should be encouraged, there is a large gap in the literature to test this idea and apply these assumptions to specific case studies. There is also a large research gap when

exploring ASEAN particularly, in comparison to other regional bodies such as the European Union. This thesis aims to explore this research gap with the objective to see if there is evidence that social constructivism and rational choice theory could offer a middle ground in terms of social theory to explore the research questions, which have been set out in this thesis.

The core hypothetical predictions of this thesis shall be that a middle ground, rational constructivist theoretical approach will identify that ASEAN does appear to be developing in terms of new principles and norms which could be seen to conflict with the original

principles of non-‐interference. This could be due to the states being able to maximise their gains by agreeing to these new policy areas. To put it simply, the benefits received through ASEAN are worthwhile, and by sticking to the founding norms may seem ok in practice, but in reality these norms could hold the states back from the full opportunities and resources that are received through being part of ASEAN.

This thesis shall now introduce the ‘Research framework’ chapter this will begin by setting out the literature review to give the reader a breakdown of some of the previous research. The ‘Theoretical framework’ section shall follow; this will explore the key concepts of social constructivism and introduce the rational choice theory as a complimentary theory to this approach. The chapter shall end with the ‘Methodology’ this will set out the research methods for this thesis.

2.0 Research framework

This chapter shall now introduce the research framework of this thesis. This chapter shall begin with the ‘Literature review’, this will introduce the study field of regionalism, in order to put ASEAN in context with previous literature, the literature review will then highlight previous literature on the study of ASEAN norms. The ‘Theoretical framework’ subchapter

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shall then be introduced; this sub chapter shall explore the core assumptions of social constructivism and how rational choice theory could play a contribution to this theory. The final part of this chapter shall be the ‘Methodology’ section this section shall set out the ‘research methods’ that will be used in this thesis. The ‘Methodology’ section shall end with the limitations of the ‘research methods’, which have been selected.

2.1 Literature review

This thesis has now outlined the research question that will be explored and analysed in this thesis. Before outlining the research theoretical argument that this thesis has chosen, this sub section shall now outline a literature review of the previous regional studies research. This sub section shall then outline the literature around the subject mater of ASEAN norms. The ‘Theoretical framework’ shall follow this section.

Breaking the ‘EU Modal’ of regionalism in ASEAN

Regionalism which has “yet to generate a widely accepted definition” (Mansfield & Milner, 1999, p.590) can be defined by Baogang He (2004) as “a form of international organization that is needed to deal with regional problems that nation-‐states are unable or lack

resources to solve” (He, 2004, p.119), Amitav Acharya (2013) referred to the typical view of regionalism as that of an area where states share “geographical proximity, shared cultural and linguistic features, and a common heritage” (Acharya, 2013, p.21). The rise in regional organisations such as the African Union and the Mercado Común del Sur (MERCOSUR) in Latin America can be seen to demonstrate nations coming together with the creation of regional organisations in order to cooperate on issues. When we look at research that explores regional studies it is not surprising that the majority of the studies and analysis is focused on the European Union, the most prominent form of regional integration between nations which has become to be known as a supranational organisation which can be defined as: “The development of authoritative institutions of governance and networks of policy-‐making activity above the nation-‐state” (Rosamond, 2000, p.204).

There is no better example of a supranational body then the EU with its 28 member states sharing a parliament, currency, open-‐borders and a human rights court along with many other integrated areas of cooperation. The success story of the European Union in dealing with issues and problems is the ideal example of a regional organisation. This has led to

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organisations aspire to become a ‘model’ based on the European Union, with scholars stating that “Europe’s history is a lesson for everybody” (Jokela, 2009, p.40). It has been suggested by some scholars such as Anja Jetschke & Philomena Murray that there is

evidence that ASEAN has been aspiring to become an European Union style modal: “ASEAN members have started to look at the EU as a putative paradigm for regional integration. As a result, they have adopted EU-‐style institutions” (Jetschke & Murray, 2012, p.176),

however other scholars have taken a different view that ASEAN is not trying to develop into a ‘EU model’.

Philomena Murray (2010) outlined the core differences between the EU and ASEAN: “democratic systems and the rule of law; relatively high levels of economic and social development and a common economic ideology. This is in considerable contrast with East Asia, which is heterogeneous...there is no common economic ideology. Levels of

development and living standards vary considerable” (Murray, 2010, p.608). Philomena Murray (2010) highlights the “core principle of sovereignty” (Murray, 2010, p.608) in ASEAN, so although ASEAN may have developed its own Secretariat, its own flag and even its own national anthem, but nationalism is seen to be the “driving force” behind regionalism in Asia, with states very much respecting “national sovereignty” (Murray, 2010, p.612). The nationalism element with ASEAN member states strictly refusing to be led towards a regional parliament of elected officials creating regional laws such as that seen in the EU, can be seen when we explore the core norms of ASEAN.

Termsak Chalermpalanupap who was a Special Assistant to the Secretary-‐General of ASEAN and worked closely on drafting the ASEAN Charter, addressed the issue of ASEAN aspiring to be an EU style of integration directly, he stated that although this regional comparison is inevitable, but it would be like “comparing a mom-‐and-‐pop store with the giant Carrefour international supermarket chain. The ASEAN Secretariat survives on a meagre budget of US$ 9.05 million…whereas the European Union and its Commission have a budget of nearly 129 billion euros (that is, about US$190 billon!” (Chalermpalanupap, 2009, p.132). Due to the huge differences, the EU is therefore seen to be an “inspiration but not a model”. Interestingly Termsak Chalermpalanupap singles out a few areas where ASEAN has been more successful for instance ASEAN has been able to use one “single working language” something that the “EU could only dream of” and that concerns from some state members

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been able to do (Chalermpalanupap, 2009, p.132). Although this thesis shall not be comparing ASEAN with the EU, it is important to note that a literature review of regional research although heavily focus’ on the EU, ASEAN is very different and should therefore be treated as the unique regional body that it deserves to be, rather then defaulting to the regional debate of the comparison between ASEAN and the EU. The next sub section of this literature review shall now introduce the notion of a group of core norms that can be seen at the very heart of ASEAN, which have become to be known as the ‘ASEAN Way’.

The importance of ASEAN’s founding norms

This subchapter has introduced the regional studies field in terms of it being very much led by scholars work into the EU, and this thesis has outlined that scholars should treat ASEAN as an independent organisation, and a direct comparison would be unjust. The final part of this literature review shall outline the core norms of ASEAN is order to differentiate

between the ‘new principles’ and the ‘founding norms’ which are both mentioned in this thesis’s research question. ASEAN’s core norms have become known as the ‘ASEAN Way’, and this includes core norms including the ‘non-‐interference’ principle, which will be largely explored throughout this thesis. This section shall outline what these norms are and why scholars have said that they are crucially important and at the very heart of ASEAN as an organisation.

“ASEAN is one of the most diverse areas in the world; it is multi-‐ethnic, multi-‐lingual and multi-‐religious” (Suryadinata, 2005, p.41) however since World War II the Southeast Asian nations became aware that they share many similarities they were “economically

undeveloped and longing for rapid development” (Suryadinata, 2005, p.41). The ending of the Cold War led to a fight against communist norms taking over the region, and this was largely the basis for the founding of ASEAN.

The ‘ASEAN Way’ refers to a distinctive approach towards to “dispute-‐settlement and regional cooperation development by the members of ASEAN with a view to ensuring regional peace and stability” (Acharya, 1997, p.328), and it is an approach that has evolved over a long period of time. The ‘ASEAN Way’ involves a core set of principles and norms, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (1976) was signed in Bali, Indonesia and outlined in ‘Article 2’ that the members would following the following principles: “(a) Mutual respect for the

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(b) The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion; (c) Non-‐interference in the internal affairs of one another; (d) Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means; (e) Renunciation of the threat or use of force” (The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, 1976). These areas have had a large impact on ASEAN and contributed towards its approach as an regional organisation (Acharya, 2001, p.47)

The emergence of these norms have been said by scholars to have realist assumptions about the importance of nationalism in Asian nations, this is due to the “region’s diversity, its geographical dispersal, its troubled past and its lack to date of the kinds soothing interconnections that have existed for some time in Western Europe” (Friedberg, 1994, p.17). Due to its historical past, nationalism is seen by some scholars to be firmly “rooted” in the nations due to its large “ethnic and racial differences” (Friedberg, 1994, p.17). Although, scholars have highlighted ASEAN’s cultural differences as being an obstacle to its progress, Amitav Acharya (2013) has stated that this has always been the case. He stated that the large amount of islands and the huge stockpile of land has meant that Southeast Asia has always had differing cultures and traditions even within the individual states, despite these differences cooperation has still taken place within Southeast Asia (Acharya, 2013).

There is a firm amount of literature to support the notion that ASEAN’s founding norms have largely been affected by its colonial past, this is seen to have a nationalistic nature due to the “legacy of a long history of colonialism” (Eaton & Stubbs, 2006, p.146). The founding norms have led to any major issues that have emerged between states and the associated difficulties to be dealt with, and solved quietly behind closed doors (Sukma, 2010, p.115). The ASEAN nations have also “strictly refrained themselves from commenting on each other’s domestic issues” (Sukma, 2010, p.116), despite criticism from international bodies such as the United Nations, ASEAN prefers to deal with any issues, through it’s ‘ASEAN Way’. There is a long list of issues that have been publically criticised with some accusing ASEAN, that its founding norms have resulted into some bad decisions this includes the “financial crisis” (Jones, 2010, p.479), which saw a large amount of money being lost, critics have said that if ASEAN had cooperated on this issue, the affects could have been reduced. ASEAN’s failure to intervene or even comment on the East Timor crisis in 1999, which saw

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Indonesian military “rampage over newly independent East Timor” caused a damaging effect to its “international creditability and prestige” (Narine, 2009, p.374). ASEAN has “never, or hardly ever” intervened in the internal affairs of some of its member with “non-‐ interference as the cause of ASEAN inaction” (Jones, 2010, p.479), Myanmar has a poor record of human rights and, ASEAN refused to comment some of the horrific actions that were taking place in the state. ASEAN chose to ignore these actions and this can be the result of its founding norms (Jones, 2010).

The ‘ASEAN Way’, and the norms associated with it, such as non-‐interference principle have also been heavily criticised for they can be seen to have acted as its own ‘self obstruction’ to some of ASEAN’s much needed developments (Tay et al., 2001). This has resulted to some firm supporters of ASEAN to publically challenge ASEAN’s core approach by stating that “ASEAN must change” (Tay et al., 2001, p.22). Commentators have said that there needs to be a “deeper commitment to the community it seeks to build”, Something needed to change and the ASEAN community have recently developed “ambitious efforts to

address these concerns by redefining and strengthening” (Narine, 2009, p.374) one of the biggest moves, taken by ASEAN to improve this has been through the ASEAN Charter (Narine, 2008). The ASEAN Charter was the first (and currently the only) Charter to put ASEAN principles firmly in place and has acted as a ‘bible’ to ASEAN’s identity. The ASEAN Charter has confirmed ASEAN’s wish to strengthen its core aims and objectives and it has aspired ASEAN to move towards its ‘2020 Vision’, which shall see ASEAN as a ‘One Nation’ of regional cooperation with its own ‘free trade area’. ASEAN’s new areas of cooperation in areas such as the “environment” and “economics” (Tay et al., 2001, p.23) have seen a challenge to ASEAN’s founding norms. This has led supportive scholars to conclude that the “Asian regionalism is an idea whose time has come” (Katzenstein, 2010, p.361), with

regional cooperation being inevitable.

2.2 Theoretical framework

This literature review has introduced the background to the topics and themes that this thesis shall be exploring. This subchapter shall now outline the two theories that have been chosen in order to explore this thesis’s research question. This thesis shall be using a

combination of the social constructivism and the rational choice theories. Before, this thesis explores these two theories, and the suggested possible merge of their core assumptions,

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based international theories, and the large amount of Western biased traditional theories dominating the Southeast Asian study field. The establishment of this debate is important in order to understand the reasoning behind this thesis’s decision not to use an Asian specific theory in the Asian region.

Political theories in Asia

In 1966 Martin Wight wrote an essay titled ‘Why is there no international theory’ (Wight, 1966) this text was to highlight the problematic issue with theories of international

relations, for international relations theories tend to have a strong Western bias (Acharya & Buzan, 2007). Amitav Acharya & Barry Buzan (2007) explored the issue as to why non-‐ western theories have dominated the international relations field, they state a number of issues including the argument that some other theories may be lost due to language and “local theories being hidden not just from the Western debate, not also from other non-‐ Western debates” (Acharya & Buzan, 2007, p.295). Amitav Acharya & Barry Buzan’s (2007) article has used Asia, as a core example of a region where Western theories tend to

dominate including with scholars who are based in Asia, they “seem to be concerned mostly with testing Western IRT on an Asian national or regional setting” (Acharya & Buzan, 2007, p.307). The debate around whether traditional Western international relations theories should or should not be applied to a region like South East Asia will not be explored in this project. However, it is important to highlight that when studying a region such as ASEAN, non-‐western international relation theories tend to be ignored and traditional international theories such as realism and neo-‐liberalism tend to have a large influence in terms of study for this region. Despite the Western bias in terms of the study in this region social

constructivism has been regarded as a popular and valid theory to be applied to in this region and scholars such as Amitav Acharya have welcomed the social constructivist approach as a theoretical approach to the study field of ASEAN, despite his heavy criticism of the large amount of Western bias in the study field of international relations (Acharya, 2005; Acharya, 2013), but when it comes to social constructivism he is one of the most focal supporters, his 2005 article was entitled ‘Is Anyone Still Not a Constructivist?' (Acharya, 2005). This article demonstrated his passionate loyalty to this theoretical approach in Asia. This subchapter shall now introduce the social constructivism approach, by introducing the core theoretical aspects; the rational choice element will be explored after the next section.

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Introducing social constructivism

Although twenty years ago social constructivism did not exist (Barnett, 2011),

constructivism has developed into a popular theory of choice in the field of international relations. Scholars that have studied ASEAN have been drawn to this theory as an

alternative theory to the traditional rationalist theories such as realism and liberalism. The rational choice theory is argued to be the rival theory to social constructivism, and many scholars have treated them as two different theories, as one focuses on the social aspects of actors where as the other focuses on the rational actor whose loyalty remains strictly with their own state. Although both of these theories are considered social theories,

scholars have been reluctant to merge certain aspects of these theories together in order to draw a more in-‐depth picture into certain international issues. Recent research has tackled this view and some scholars have argued that both theories could be used to explain certain behaviours between states. This thesis will be exploring this idea by testing these theories against ASEAN, and the analytical section shall be applying these theories to the recent ASEAN developments.

Constructivism emphasises the importance of the “human consciousness and its role in international life” (Ruggie, 1998, p.856), constructivist scholars believe that “even identities are generated in part by international interaction” (Ruggie, 1998, p.879). Social constructivists take the view that the “material world is one of the ultimate forms of power” (Adler, 2002, p.102). There are two main variants of constructivism, the European variant often labelled as ‘post-‐positivist’ (bottom up approach) this variant explores the “the role of language in mediating and constructing social reality” (Checkel, 2011, p.7), the European variant explores linguistic constructions and instead of examining the factors that cause a state’s identity to change they instead “explore the background conditions and linguistic constructions (social discourses) that made any such change possible in the first place” (Checkel, 2011, p.7). This thesis shall however be using the North American variant “which is heavily dominated by US scholars” (Checkel, 2011, p.6), this approach is ‘positivist’ (top down approach) and examines and explores social norms in terms and relationships among “actors, norms, interests and identity” (Checkel, 2011, p.6).

The term constructivism was first termed by Nicholas Onuf (1989) and although “twenty years ago constructivism did not exist” (Barnett, 2011). Constructivism began as a meta

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theory and is identified as a social theory as opposed to being a substantive theory, for constructivism offers “ little in the way of substantive knowledge, or even hypothesis, about the behaviour of states” (Chernoff, 2007, p.68). Constructivism can be seen by some not to be a theory but as an “ontology” (Slaughter, 2011) which takes the form of “a set of

assumptions about the world and human motivation and agency” (Slaughter, 2011) therefore its counterpart is not seen to be the traditional theories of realism or liberalism but is counterpart is seen to be rationalism (Slaughter, 2011), (this will be explored later in this chapter). Constructivism’s inability to predict behaviour through producing hypotheses has been heavily criticised for unlike traditional theories such as realism which can be used to predict certain state behaviours e.g. a state will ‘pursue with their own interests’,

constructivism cannot be used as a tool to predict behaviours, however the failure for realism to correctly predict the patterns of behaviour, was demonstrated and dismissed at the end of the Cold War. The end of the Cold War, through a realist prospectus should have led other states to “balance against the US because offsetting US power is a means of guaranteeing one’s own security” (Jackson & Sorensen, 2006, p.163), however this did not occur and no new power emerged. Constructivists claimed that the “neorealist uncertainty is closely connected to the fact that the theory is overly spare and materialist” (Jackson & Sorensen, 2006, p.163), constructivists would therefore purse with their view that

“thoughts and ideas leads to a better theory”. Constructivist’s core issue with realism was that “the nature of the state is, in some sense, given, and that the rules that govern state behaviour are simply part of the way things are, rather than the product of human intervention” (Brown & Ainley, 2009, p.48).

One of the most influential scholars in the social constructivist field is Alexander Wendt, he disputed with the assumption that anarchy is automatic, with his essay entitled: ‘Anarchy is what states make of it’ (Wendt, 1992), he argued that identities and interests of states such as anarchy are socially constructed and that different experiences and practices will affect the state. For example countries that view other states as an enemy, will not necessarily automatically occur, it may have been constructed due to past historical tensions and disputes this could have a lasting effect on the relations between these two states. Wendt used the example of nuclear weapons as an example of how relationships can be socially constructed, the example Wendt used was that although the United Kingdom has a stockpile of nuclear weapons, the USA is unlikely to be concerned about

The Association of Southeast Nations : why has ASEAN agreed to new principles that conflict with their founding norms?