1 Challenges and Opportunities in the Pursuit of Comprehensive Integration Christopher B. Roberts The River ‘Salween’ Photograph by Author 2 Abstract In October 2003, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) proposed the establishment of a security, economic and socio‐cultural community by the year 2020. Given that initiators of the ASEAN proposal were informed by the scholarly literature on the concept of a ‘security community’, this dissertation develops and then tests the concept in relation to the ASEAN states. Here, the concept of a ‘security community’ is understood as ‘a transnational grouping of two or more states whose sovereignty is increasingly amalgamated and whose people maintain dependable expectations of peaceful change’. The application of the ‘security community framework’ developed in this study is necessary to provide a conceptual basis for critically assessing the major factors that could potentially impede ASEAN’s evolution towards a security community. For the purpose of such an assessment, the study provides a detailed investigation of the most significant historical issues and contemporary security challenges that inform the nature of inter‐state relations in Southeast Asia. As a complement to this approach, the dissertation incorporates the analysis of data obtained from extensive fieldwork in all ten of the ASEAN states involving over 100 in‐depth interviews and two survey designs (one at the elite level and another at the communal level) involving 919 participants. While the survey work, especially at the communal level, is best considered a pilot study and the results are therefore to be considered as indicative, the research nevertheless represents the first empirical assessment of regional perceptions of trust, intra‐mural relations, security, economic integration, and liberalisation and of a broad range of other factors relevant to the analysis. The interview data has also been invaluable in uncovering previously unpublished information and in contextualising the analysis. Despite a considerable strengthening of the region’s security architecture since ASEAN’s formation, the ten chapters in the study reveal that the Association has a long way to travel before it will satisfy the defining criteria of a security community. The region lacks a common sense of community and consequently the level of trust between the Southeast Asian states remains problematic. The political elite continue to engage in episodes of competitive behaviour, have been unable to resolve territorial disputes, and thus the continued potential for armed conflict undermines the 3 prospect for ‘dependable expectations of peaceful change’. Therefore, ASEAN’s evolution towards the status of a security community, if it proceeds further, will likely occur over the course of many decades rather than by ASEAN’s current goal of 2015. 4 Table of Contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................... 4 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 11 CHAPTER II. THE CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS FOR A SOUTHEAST ASIAN SECURITY COMMUNITY .............. 49 CHAPTER III. DEVELOPING A DEFENDABLE FRAMEWORK: THE PROCESSES BEHIND THE EMERGENCE OF A SECURITY COMMUNITY .............................................................................................................................. 95 CHAPTER IV. TURBULENT HISTORIES: THE RISE OF SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE SEARCH FOR REGIONAL ORDER .................................................................................................................................................................133 CHAPTER V. ASEAN’S HISTORICAL RECORD: A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE EARLY SEARCH FOR COOPERATION AND A MODUS VIVENDI ....................................................................................................180 CHAPTER VI. THE MYANMAR MEMBERSHIP CRISIS: FURTHER TESTS TO ELITE COHESION AND THE ASEAN WAY .........................................................................................................................................................233 CHAPTER VII. CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES: ASEAN, A FRAGILE INSTITUTION OR A STABLE FOUNDATION? .................................................................................................................................................................265 CHAPTER VIII. CONTEMPORARY EVALUATIONS: INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS, STATE BEHAVIOUR, AND REGIONAL PERCEPTIONS ...........................................................................................................................309 CHAPTER IX. CONTINUED VOLATILITY: MYANMAR AND THE CHALLENGE OF DOMESTIC DISORDER ............370 CHAPTER X. ASEAN’S SECURITY COMMUNITY PROJECT: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECTS ..............................429 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................................................444 5 Analytical Table of Contents ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................................... 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................................... 4 ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................ 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 11 LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................................................. 15 THE RISE OF, AND LITERATURE ON, THE CONCEPT OF A SECURITY COMMUNITY ....................................................... 15 THE NEO‐KANTIANS AND THE DEMOCRATIC SECURITY COMMUNITY ..................................................................... 22 SECURITY COMMUNITIES AND OTHER MULTILATERAL SECURITY FRAMEWORKS IN THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE ............... 25 THE CONTRASTING CHARACTERISATIONS OF ASEAN AND SOUTHEAST ASIA’S SECURITY ARCHITECTURE ....................... 29 APPROACH OF THE DISSERTATION AND LIMITATIONS TO THE RESEARCH ............................................... 37 FIELDWORK AND IN‐DEPTH INTERVIEWS ........................................................................................................... 39 ELITE AND COMMUNAL LEVEL SURVEYS ........................................................................................................... 40 FURTHER LIMITATIONS AND CONSIDERATIONS TO THE RESEARCH .......................................................................... 43 CHAPTER STRUCTURE ................................................................................................................................... 45 CHAPTER II. THE CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS FOR A SOUTHEAST ASIAN SECURITY COMMUNITY .............. 49 PART A: THE CONCEPTUAL PILLARS TO A SECURITY COMMUNITY ........................................................... 50 SECURITY COMMUNITIES: PLURALISTIC, AMALGAMATED, OR INTEGRATED? ............................................................ 51 SECURITY ................................................................................................................................................... 53 COMMUNITY .............................................................................................................................................. 64 INTEGRATION ............................................................................................................................................. 69 DEPENDABLE EXPECTATIONS OF PEACEFUL CHANGE ........................................................................................... 72 PART B: THE POSSIBILITY OF STABLE PEACE AND THE INTEGRATIVE STRUCTURES BEHIND A SECURITY COMMUNITY ......................................................................................................................................... 76 NATURE OR NURTURE – ELITES AND STATE ACTORS UNDER ANARCHY ................................................................... 76 THE TIERS OF INTEGRATION – FROM INTEGRATIVE PROCESSES TO INTERSTATE BEHAVIOUR ........................................ 83 HIGH INTEGRATION – THE STRUCTURAL VARIATIONS BEHIND A SECURITY COMMUNITY ............................................. 89 CHAPTER III. DEVELOPING A DEFENDABLE FRAMEWORK: THE PROCESSES BEHIND THE EMERGENCE OF A SECURITY COMMUNITY .............................................................................................................................. 95 THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS TO THE PROCESSES BEHIND SECURITY COMMUNITY FORMATION ......... 95 NORMS AND THE COLLECTIVE IDENTITY