The 'ASEAN way' with its emphasis on sovereighty, non-interference, and consensus has failed to resolve ethnic and religious conflicts

Abstract

This research addresses a prominent puzzle in Southeast Asia concerning the existence of a number of protracted ethnic conflicts. The focus is on the question why these conflicts have remained unresolved for decades, and this is in spite of a generally peaceful political environment in the region. The aim of this research is to identify a possible answer to the question and this is linked to how Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), more specifically the ‘ASEAN way’ deals with these conflicts. I hypothesize that The ‘ASEAN way’ with its emphasis on sovereignty, non-interference, and consensus has failed to resolve ethnic and religious conflicts. The theoretical framework is based on Walter’s theory of credible commitment and third party guarantee. To verify this hypothesis I shall be using data from four case studies from different countries within the region. Analysis will be based on George and Bennett’s case study comparisons and process tracing. Regarding the case studies, one has seemingly been resolved and one partially resolved, and both have the benefit of third party actors and security guarantees of some sort, which confirms Walter’s theory. One remains unresolved, while the fourth case is a stand-alone case where the government insisted on its own approach. In all cases, we only see minimal ASEAN peace contribution. Critics of ASEAN are quick to lay the blame on the ‘ASEAN way’ for preventing it to play an active role in mediating in the conflicts. It is generally true that sovereignty and non-interference prevents ASEAN from getting involved in members’ internal affairs and its consensus decision making means ‘sensitive’ and complicated matters are unlikely to be raised. However, it seems too simplistic to hold the ‘ASEAN way’ totally accountable. There are several important factors that need to be taken into account and these include the complex, deep-rooted nature of the conflicts with one dating back to a few centuries ago, insistence of the affected country to do things on their own, information asymmetries, existence of ‘spoilers’ and ASEAN’s weak institutional setup. ASEAN was not setup as a conflict resolution body and proposals to form an ASEAN peace keeping force has been rejected, so it would not have the expertise and the organizational backup to perform the work of a third party to provide credible commitment and security guarantees, as envisaged by Walter. Unless ASEAN can overcome these two ‘weaknesses’ it is unlikely to play the role of an active third party mediator. While ASEAN as a whole has not taken up a third party role, its individual members, mainly Malaysia and Indonesia, have taken up third party roles. Thus the ‘ASEAN way’ even though it emphasizes on sovereignty and noninterference, does not prevent its members from getting involved in another member’s internal affairs, provided they have the consent of the affected country.