Keeping the peace in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the quest for positive peace

Southeast Asia has gone through a remarkable transformation in recent decades and seen peaceful change since the end of the Cold War era despite great power interference and rivalry and ongoing territorial disputes including the South China Sea conflict. The region has transformed its image from the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPacific review Vol. 35; no. 6; pp. 1079 - 1104
Main Authors Caballero-Anthony, Mely, Emmers, Ralf
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford Routledge 02.11.2022
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
ASEAN
Cold War
comprehensive security
Disputes
International relations
Peace
positive peace
Regional security
Regional variations
Regions
Resilience
Southeast Asia
Territorial issues
Transformation
Southeast Asia
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Summary:Southeast Asia has gone through a remarkable transformation in recent decades and seen peaceful change since the end of the Cold War era despite great power interference and rivalry and ongoing territorial disputes including the South China Sea conflict. The region has transformed its image from the so-called Balkans of the East in the 1960s and 1970s to an economically competitive and peaceful region today. Despite these accomplishments, the record of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in maintaining regional peace and security has also been seriously challenged, particularly at the domestic and transnational level. The paper argues that the Southeast Asian experience of peaceful change calls for a different framework of analysis that goes beyond the traditional International Relations theories which do not provide a compelling answer to whether regional peace has prevailed. It reviews ASEAN's approaches to managing peace and security in Southeast Asia and brings close attention to domestic and international dynamics. The paper claims that the Southeast Asian states' approach to positive peace, reflected in the notion of comprehensive security and the building of national and regional resilience, is instructive in understanding peaceful transformations in the region.
ISSN:0951-2748
1470-1332
DOI:10.1080/09512748.2022.2075440