Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia

ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order

Amitav Acharya

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415747684
• eBook ISBN: 9781317751243
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In this third edition of Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, Amitav Acharya offers a comprehensive and critical account of the evolution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management. Building on the framework from the first edition, which inspired the establishment of the ASEAN Political-Security community, this new edition has been extensively updated and revised based on new primary sources that are not publicly available.

Updates for this edition include:

• Expanded and updated coverage of the South China Sea Conflict and how it affects regional order and tests ASEAN unity
• Analysis of new developments in the US role in the region, including ASEAN's place and role in the US pivot/rebalancing strategy and the evolution of the East Asian Community, the newest summit-level multilateral group
• Extensive analysis of the ASEAN Political-Security community
• An examination of US–China relations and China–ASEAN relations
• Coverage of ASEAN's institutional development and the controversy over reform of the ASEAN Secretariat.
• An updated outlook on ASEAN's future as a security community and the issue of ASEAN Centrality in the regional security architecture.

The new edition will continue to appeal to students and scholars of Asian security, international relations theory and Southeast Asian studies, as well as policymakers and the media.

1 Constructing security communities

How do states develop the ‘long-term habit’ of interacting and managing disputes with others peacefully? The Deutschian framework explained this puzzle by focusing on transaction flows, the spread of transnational values, the development of shared understandings, and the generation of mutual trust.¹ Interactions between states (as well as interaction between social groups) can lead to greater mutual interdependence and responsiveness, including ‘discovery of new interests’ and recognition of collective identities that would progressively render war illegitimate as a means of problem solving.² Constructivist theory offers a range of new insights by further developing and refining the Deutschian framework (which had been criticised for an excessive preoccupation with measuring transactions). The main contribution of constructivism includes its insights into the interplay of institutions, norms and identities that goes into the social construction of security communities.

This chapter provides a framework for understanding the processes and dynamics underlying the making and unmaking of pluralistic security communities. It draws upon the work of Deutsch and his associates, as well as my own previous work (since 1992) on the concept, and the constructivist work on security communities spearheaded by Adler and Barnett around the same time. The chapter proceeds in five parts. The first defines security communities and differentiates them from other forms of international and regional orders. The second section analyses how multilateral (including regional) institutions can play a security community-building role by specifying norms of state behaviour and providing a framework for socialisation that could regulate the behaviour of states and lead to the development of collective interests and identities. The next section looks at the applicability of the concept to the Third World. Like many concepts and theories of international relations, the concept of security community is West European in origin. When Karl Deutsch and his associates first proposed the idea of security community, they were seeking to explain the emergence of cooperation among the developed states of the North Atlantic region. Neither they, nor most of the scholars who have used the concept since, have given consideration to the possibility of security communities in the developing world. Applying Deutsch’s model to Third World regions such as Southeast Asia is therefore problematic, because many of the background conditions he and other integration theorists identified as important in the North Atlantic, such as liberal politics and market economics, are often missing from most Third World regions.

The fourth section discusses the emergence and decline of security communities. It identifies the key developments and indicators in the various stages of their evolution. It also discusses the possibility, often ignored in other constructivist studies of international cooperation, that community-building efforts may suffer setbacks or be reversed as a result of increased socialisation and expansion. In other words, this section will outline an evolutionary but non-linear perspective on the construction of security communities. The final section draws the framework of the book, providing brief introductions to chapters and outlining the key questions in terms of which the evolution of ASEAN and the impact of ASEAN’s norms will be investigated.

Defining security communities

A security community is distinguished by a ‘real assurance that the members of that community will not fight each other physically, but will settle their disputes in some other way’.³ Such communities could either be ‘amalgamated’ through the formal political merger of the participating units, or remain ‘pluralistic’, in which case the members retain their independence and sovereignty.

This book is concerned with pluralistic security communities among sovereign states. A pluralistic security community may be defined as a ‘transnational region comprised of sovereign states whose people maintain dependable expectations of peaceful change’.⁴ Such a community could be identified in terms of several features, but two are especially important. The first is the absence of war, and the second is the absence of significant organised preparations for war vis-à-vis any other members. Regional security communities, as Yalem notes, are groups of states that have ‘renounced the use of force as a means of resolving intraregional conflicts’.⁵ The absence of war or organised violence need not, however, imply an absence of differences, disputes or conflicts of interest among the actors. Holsti observes that ‘some serious differences have arisen among states in security communities’, although ‘some special characteristics of these relationships have prevented the quarrelling governments from adopting forms of behavior typical in conflicts involving threat or use of force’.⁶ Thus it is an ability to manage conflicts within the group peacefully, rather than the absence of conflict per se, which distinguishes a security community from other types of security relationships. To quote Deutsch,

even if some of the prospective partner countries [in a security community] find themselves on the opposite sides in some larger international conflict they conduct themselves so as to keep actual mutual hostilities and damage to a minimum – or else refuse to fight each other altogether.⁷

Security communities are also marked by the absence of a competitive military buildup or arms race involving their members. Within a security community, ‘war among the prospective partners comes to be considered as illegitimate’, and ‘serious preparations for it no longer command popular support’.⁸ States within a security community usually abstain from acquiring weapons that are primarily offensive in nature. Neither are they likely to engage in contingency planning and war-oriented resource mobilisation against other actors within the community. To the extent that

[t]he absence of such advance preparations for large-scale violence between any two territories or groups of people prevents any immediate outbreak of effective war between them … it serves for this reason as the test for the existence or non-existence of a security community among the groups concerned.⁹

Viewed in this light, the absence of arms racing or contingency planning becomes a key indicator of whether states have developed ‘dependable expectations of peaceful change’ and thereby overcome the security dilemma. As Deutsch put it, ‘the attainment of a security community can thus be tested operationally in terms of the absence or presence of significant organized preparations for war or large-scale violence among its members’.¹⁰

The task of developing a framework for the study of security communities requires us to differentiate them from other forms of multilateral security cooperation. For the purpose of this book, and drawing on my earlier work on security communities (see Table 1.1 below), I distinguish security communities from three other types of regional security systems. First, a distinction may be made between a security community and a security regime.¹¹ In a security regime, as Buzan points out, ‘a group of states cooperate to manage their disputes and avoid war by seeking to mute the security dilemma both by their own actions and by their assumptions about the behaviour of others’.¹² This may seem similar to security communities; however, there are important differences. A security regime normally describes a situation in which the interests of the actors ‘are neither wholly compatible nor wholly competitive’.¹³ Indeed, a security regime may develop within an otherwise adversarial relationship in which the use of force is inhibited by the existence of a balance of power or mutual deterrence situation. In this context, the common interest of the USA and the former Soviet Union with regard to nuclear weapons and non-proliferation measures has been cited as an example of a security regime.¹⁴ A security community, on the other hand, must be based on a fundamental, unambiguous and long-term convergence of interests among the actors in the avoidance of war. While international regimes do not always or necessarily work to ‘constrain’ the use of force and produce cooperation, in the case of security communities, the non-use of force is already assumed. Furthermore, security regimes do not necessarily imply that participants are interested in, or already bound by, functional linkages, cooperation, integration or interdependence, while this is an essential feature of security communities. Thus, the Concert of Europe or the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe during the Cold War constituted examples of security regimes,¹⁵ while the relationships between the USA and Canada, and among the members of the European Union (EU), are better described as having the attributes of a security community.

Table 1.1 Security communities and other frameworks of security cooperation

Security regime: • Principles, rules and norms that restrain the behaviour of states on a reciprocal basis. • Competitive arms acquisitions and contingency planning usually continue within the regime, although specific regimes might be created to limit the spread of weapons and military capabilities. • The absence of war within the community may be due to short-term factors and considerations such as the economic and political weakness of actors otherwise prone to violence or to the existence of a balance of power or mutual deterrence situation. In either case, the interests of the actors in peace are not fundamental, unambiguous or long-term in nature.

Security community: • Strict and observed norms concerning non-use of force; no competitive arms acquisitions and contingency planning against each other within the grouping. • Institutions and processes (formal or informal) for the pacific settlement of disputes. • Long-term prospects for war avoidance. • Significant functional cooperation and integration. • A sense of collective identity.

Collective defence: • Common perception of external threat(s) among or by the members of the community; such a threat might be another state or states within the region or an extra-regional power, but not from a member. • An exclusionary arrangement of like-minded states. • Reciprocal obligations of assistance during military contingencies. • Significant military interoperability and integration. • The conditions of a security community may or may not exist among the members.

Collective security: • Prior agreement on the willingness of all parties to participate in the collective punishment of aggression against any member state. • No prior identification of enemy or threat. • No expectation of and requirement for economic or other functional cooperation. • A collective physical capacity to punish aggression.

Source: Amitav Acharya, ‘A Regional Security Community in Southeast Asia?,’ Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 18, no. 3 (September 1995), pp. 175–200.

Security regimes are more akin to what Deutsch called a ‘no-war community’. The latter is a first step towards a fully-fledged security community, but unlike a security community a no-war community is one in which ‘the possibility of war is still expected and to some extent preparations are made for it. Sanctions may include continuing defensive preparations for self-help by members.’¹⁶ In a no-war community, prospects for use of force are suppressed by specific circumstances, such as common threat perceptions. War avoidance is based on short-term calculations, rather than on ‘dependable’ and ‘long-term expectations of peaceful change’. Such a community may be relatively easily disrupted by internal or external developments. It is a short step from cooperation and war avoidance to an arms race and military rivalry. Moreover, security regimes are marked by the absence of the ‘we feeling’. Institutions for conflict resolution are at best rudimentary or nonexistent.

The idea of a security community is also distinct from that of an alliance or a defence community. The imperative of war avoidance must be distinguished from that of collective defence. An alliance is usually conceived and directed against a pre-recognised and commonly perceived external threat. Security communities, on the other hand, identify no such threat or may have no function of organising a joint defence against it. A security community implies a relationship of peace and stability among a group of states without any sense of how they might collectively relate to external actors. To be sure, security communities can develop out of common threat perceptions found in an alliance. Moreover, alliances can exist bilaterally or multilaterally within a security community (and such arrangements usually indicate a mature security community with a fairly well-developed collective identity). But this is not to be regarded as an indispensable or even essential characteristic of security communities.

The difference between security community and alliance could be highlighted by applying Lynn Miller’s distinction between the ‘peace’ and ‘security’ role of regional organisations. The ‘peace’ role, central to a security community, refers to the ‘potential of a regional organization, through its peacekeeping machinery and diplomatic techniques, for controlling the forceful settlement of conflicts among its own members’. The ‘security’ role, which might be considered integral to a defence community, denotes ‘the potential of the organization to present a common military front against an outside actor or actors’.¹⁷

To be sure, Western security communities usually feature alliance relationships (most EU members are also part of NATO). But, while a defence community may be subsumed within a larger security community (and vice versa), this is not a necessary feature of the latter. The key aim of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Tables and figures
• Series editor’s preface to the first edition
• Preface to the second edition
• Preface to the third edition
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• The evolution of ASEAN-Ten
• Map of Southeast Asia
• ASEAN 2010: Basic indicators
• Introduction
• 1 Constructing security communities
• 2 The evolution of ASEAN norms and the emergence of the ‘ASEAN Way’
• 3 ASEAN and the Cambodia conflict
• 4 Extending ASEAN norms
• 5 Managing intra-ASEAN relations
• 6 ASEAN and Asia-Pacific security
• 7 The ‘ASEAN security community’
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography on ASEAN
• Index