ASEAN : sovereign recalcitrant or security community architect?

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates both the extent and the limits of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) ability to cooperate as a security community. The intent of the dissertation is to analyse the relevance and feasibility of preserving sovereign prerogatives within a framework of regional cooperation among the five core ASEAN member states: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Thailand. The study particularly reflects the tensions between the individual member-states' traditional sovereign prerogatives and the Association's stated ambition to develop into a regional security community. ASEAN's experience of community building has shown that the member-states still have insufficient will to act to reconcile the existing regional system with a capacity for deeper security cooperation because the predisposition of ASEAN members for Westphalian style sovereignty restricts this possibility. ASEAN can be characterised as a 'loose security community' with a judicious idea of power, institutions, interests and norms of 'we feeling' prevailing in the process of security community-building. The thesis argues that to build a security community that can succeed in Southeast Asia, the ASEAN member-states must rely on managing 'adaptable sovereignty'. Adaptable sovereignty allows the adjustment of sovereign prerogatives enabling compromise that provides the impetus toward community-building, but not to the point where the primacy of sovereignty is surrendered. Two case studies examine how ASEAN manages sovereignty to permit security cooperation. The first analyses combating terrorism in Southeast Asia, while the second investigates how three ASEAN states have cooperated to improve maritime security in the Malacca Straits. The case studies indicate that building a security community within ASEAN can only occur if the member-states do not have to substantially sacrifice their national sovereignty prerogatives, while simultaneously strengthening their sense of community over time. Current collaborative security efforts demonstrate that ASEAN's key member states are capable of striking a judicious balance between their respective sovereign prerogatives and community building efforts, but not to the point where the primacy of sovereignty is extinguished. This 'adaptable' form of sovereignty can be seen in their simultaneous protection of state-centric primacy, while also pursuing the higher levels of institutionalisation and interdependence necessary for effective security cooperation to develop.