Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Politics - Region: South Asia, grade: 68% (credit), The University of Sydney, course: Dilemmas of Development in Southeast Asia, language: English, abstract: Singapore’s Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong opened the 6thSummit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Hanoi with the words: "This has been a traumatic year for ASEAN members." Indeed, the financial crisis of 1997 marked the end of an extraordinary decade of internationally oriented economic growth throughout Southeast Asia, and came as a shock for the Southeast Asian countries. Although Paul Krugman had warned that Asian growth, like that of the Soviet Union in its high-growth era, seemed to be driven by extraordinary growth in inputs like labour and capital rather than by gains in efficiency, his was a lone voice in academic discussion. The severity of the crisis inevitably raised the question of how it would affect ASEAN. Ross Garnaut commented that the largest long-term effect of the crisis would be its effect on policy formulation. Since its formation in 1967, ASEAN has occupied a central role in the international relations of Southeast Asia.5It was the first regional organization in Asia, and is a crucial factor in East Asian and Asia-Pacific regionalism. From the beginning, ASEAN’s mission was regional resilience against great power interests. Economic development in the region was perceived as means to ward off communist and ethnic rebellions. However, after three decades of promoting peaceful intra-regional relations, ASEANone of the most successful regional organizations in the developing world-has needed to seriously reinvent itself since 1997. As the Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore, Shanmugam Jayakumar, noted in April 2006: “we have to rethink and remake ASEAN”. According to Jayakumar, ASEAN has to deepen and accelerate the process of integration to stay competitive in the face of the challenges confronting the regional grouping, or face the risk of being marginalised. Furthermore, he claimed that ASEAN must adopt a different paradigm with both bold and practical ideas for the future. This essay will examine four reasons why ASEAN must redefine its future aims, strategies and paths. The first part deals with its failure to react to the financial crisis, while the second outlines its norms, especially non-interference. Parts three and four analyse external factors: the rise of China, the emergence of East Asian regionalism and other geopolitical factors.

As the regional financial and economic crisis has bottomed out and the ASEAN countries are on the recovery path, this volume seeks to carry out a post-mortem on the crisis to evaluate the sustainability of the recovery and the long-term direction of the ASEAN economies. It also examines the challenges and competitiveness of these economies which have become significant issues in the post-recovery process. Since it is not sufficient to address the economic and financial aspects, the volume also looks at the human and social dimensions, such as food security, poverty, and cross-border pollution. Furthermore, in the wake of the regional crisis, ASEAN has been criticized as being ineffective. This has prompted a re-examination of the relevance of the regional grouping in its present form, evaluating ASEAN's performance, challenges and opportunities and assessing whether there is a need for change.

The initiative to establish the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Community was adopted by the ten leaders at the 2003 Bali Summit in Indonesia. Since then, the concept of a community-building process in ASEAN has become an issue that attracts a great deal of attention from scholars and experts around the world.ASEAN Matters! Reflecting on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations carries essays with different perspectives on critical issues relating to the three pillars in building the ASEAN Community, namely the ASEAN Political and Security Community; the ASEAN Economic Community; and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. In a nutshell, this book provides broad and invaluable insights into the role ASEAN plays in enhancing peace, prosperity, and stability in the Southeast Asian region.Written in a highly accessible style, the contents include both a thorough review of current issues and a succinct overview of the past and future direction of ASEAN. The book reiterates the continued and strengthening relevance of ASEAN, 43 years after its founding.Unlike most other books on ASEAN, a majority of the essays are written by former professional staff at the ASEAN Secretariat, as well as from current office holders. This gives the volume a high degree of authenticity and unique insights. More interestingly, it also includes viewpoints from experts, scholars, diplomats and officials who either have extensive research knowledge or had been involved in ASEAN's external and economic relations with the dialogue partners, such as China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union (EU), among others.

Academic and accepted orthodoxy maintains that Southeast Asia, and Asia generally, is evolving into a distinctive East Asian regional order. This book questions this claim and reveals instead uncertainty and incoherence at the heart of ASEAN, the region's foremost institution. The authors provide a systematic critique of ASEAN's evolution and institutional development, as well as a unified understanding of the international relations and political economy of ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific. It is the first study to provide a sceptical analysis of international relations orthodoxies regarding regionalization and institutionalism, and is based on wide-ranging and rigorous research. Students of international relations, the Asia-Pacific, Southeast Asia, regional studies, international history and security and defence studies will find this book of great interest, as will scholars, policy makers and economic forecasters with an interest in long-term Asia-Pacific trends.

This book contains the most comprehensive and critical account available of the evolution of The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management.

The 2011 WDR on Conflict, Security and Development underlines the devastating impact of persistent conflict on a country or region's development prospects - noting that the 1.5 billion people living in conflict-affected areas are twice as likely to be in poverty. Its goal is to contribute concrete, practical suggestions on conflict and fragility.