3rd meeting of IR in

Southeast Asia
Heavy Nala E., S.IP., M.Hub.Int
The study of IR in Southeast Asia
• The Realist Approach • relative gains Vs zero sum
game
• The dominant paradigm • ASEAN is a mode of
for interpreting international cooperation
international relations through which member states
in Southeast Asia has pursue national interest
been realism. • With security still the realist
heart of interest and the
• The pillars of realism balance of power its
are the sovereign state, mechanism, ASEAN as a
regime for cooperative security
national self-interest, can be placed in a realist
and power. balance of power perspective
Liberalism
• ASEAN > shifted from • functionalist theory -
state actors to the through ASEAN specific
assumed regional transnational structures in
the economic, technical,
institutional actor and social fields would
• ASEAN was viewed evolve, to which ASEAN-
through the lens of wide decision making
international authority would be
transferred
integration studies,
relying too much on • Liberal integration? failure?
analogy from the • Regime theory? Asean Way
Western European
experience
 • Asean > the lack of legal or
Constructivism institutional progress is not
important. What is
important is mutual
• For constructivists, a recognition of an ASEAN
community is socially identity.
constructed through • ASEAN multiple Identities
knowledge, norms, of national, ethnic, religios,
culture, and other class
cooperative • The expansion of ASEAN to
associations that over include a military junta,
Leninist command states,
time cognitively and Islamic absolutism
promote a collective makes the constructivist
identity approach problematic.
• collective identity???
The Intl. Actor in Southeast Asia
• Actor > state and non state
• 11 actors in Southeast Asia
• 3 extraregional actors > US, China, Japan
• others extra reg. Australia, India, Russia in relation
to Indonesia
• Nonstate actors > IO under UN Umbrella, INGO,
Internationl Terrorist Group (Al-Qaeda linked to
Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) network, criminal enterprises
Extraregional State Actors
• US > contributing to a • American post–Cold War
stable international strategy in Southeast Asia >
to advance the American
order; essential to the economic agenda of
regional balance of international trade and
power; a benign investment liberalization
hegemony; or (APEC)
imperialism • the disruption of US-Indo
relations
• Cold War containment
• counterterrorism post 9/11
of communism policy
• The US Pivot to Asia
• China, Australia
Southeast Asia in Cold War Period