Page 37 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1
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Azman and Kumar, 2018
considered as effective, considering that there are series of shocks that ASEAN had faced over
the last three decades namely the 1988 Spratly Skirmish, the US’s controversial exercise of
Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOP) and the failure to issue a joint communique during
the 2012 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting.
The second factor that might determine ASEAN principled-pragmatism is regional resilience
and ruled-based focus. Resilience, in the straightforward term, refers to "the ability to resist
sudden shocks and recover from them” (Fjader 2014:119). In the setting of regional grouping,
there are three forms of society resilience that can be applied; first, “adaptation towards the
maintenance of status quo, second, keeping the shock as marginal to safeguard the existing
structures or policies and third, ability to renew and transform by diversifying multiple
structures” (Fjader 2014: 121).
For ASEAN, it is relatively presumable that the Association is currently at first level and the
second level by looking at the stable security nature of regional status quo with its members
actively committing to the grouping and how ASEAN has been managing series of threats
while engaging with great powers. The regional efforts towards building a more resilient
community can be seen in ASEAN Political-Security Blueprint by 2025 which focuses on
rules-based community.
In another perspective, ASEAN’s current rapid economic transformation is not just necessary
to improve the ten countries' infrastructure development but also to fuel the growing appetite
of external powers’ strategic political and economic interests. The history has also shown that
during the Second World War, the Southeast Asia region became the theatrical concourse for
the world’s superpowers to fight for the golden land for natural resources like rubber and to
assert political ideology and military superiority. In this context, the construction of regional
resilience should accentuate states' vulnerabilities and insecurities due to the visceral issues of
socio-cultural, economic and geopolitical security that will always be the factors in the intra-
states inter-state political environment (Christopherson et al. 2010:5).
The third determinant factor to ASEAN's principled-pragmatism is the ‘we-feelings' identity.
The ‘we-feelings' identity is essentially the manifestation of ASEAN's sense of belonging to
one region, or notion of having shared destiny to produce a form of ownership and togetherness
that lubricates the relationship between both people and the governments of ASEAN (Baba
2016:95-97). Applying Constructivism to understand the idea of ‘we feelings’ in ASEAN, it
can be interpreted through the idea of ‘mutual consciousness of identity'. Wendt explains that
‘mutual consciousness of identity emphasises on the "share destiny of others, define interests
with regards to other states, and possibly will develop a sense of community" (Wendt 1994:
386).
Central to this analysis is that the ‘we-feelings' identity also favours the ASEAN Way of
handling conflicts through the consensus-making process and underscores the regional
communitarian aspects where “ideational construction to create a new state identity that
enabled member-state to pursue its interest in ASEAN” on fundamental shared interests for
maintenance of sovereignty and a similar vision of regionalism and regionalisation” (Acharya
2014:25). This can be seen during the post-Cold War era where some of the Southeast Asia
countries shared attachment in political and social beliefs in the form of status quo, cultural
commonalities and historical experience despite the odds they faced.
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