Think Tanks and Non-Traditional Security

Governance Entrepreneurs in Asia

Erin Zimmerman

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781137488244
• eBook ISBN: 9781137488251
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Asian security institutions have struggled to adapt to the so-called 'non-traditional' security issues that characterise the strategic landscape of the 21st century. The resulting gaps in governance have increasingly been filled by think tanks, which have arguably begun to change the way that Asian security is governed.

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Introduction

This book is the product of several years of research into the changing nature of security in Asia. It examines the new modes of security governances that have emerged in the face of progressing globalisation (and regionalisation), new sources of insecurity and the liberalisation and democratisation of many Asian states. More to the point, it hones in on the growing influence of non-state actors who have begun injecting themselves into regional and international politics. While the conclusions in this book are necessarily discrete, its implications are vast. What this research demonstrates is that the responsibility for security governance is increasingly being rescaled away from state-centric forums upwards into regional venues and outwards into the hands of non-state actors. The state still retains primacy; however, the increasingly transboundary nature of security in Asia has made cross-regional cooperation a necessity. The realisation that new threats are overwhelmingly transboundary has encouraged a region with limited practice in regional solidarity to look for new avenues of cooperation – and when states have been slow to provide these avenues, non-state actors have filled in the resultant gaps in governance.

Non-state actors, in general, and think tanks, in particular, have been important ideational entrepreneurs of new modes of security governance in Asia. Either by providing the ideas upon which new governing regimes are based, offering a safe testing location for new institutions and approaches, or by becoming institutions in their own right, think tanks and their networks have embedded themselves in Asian governing processes at previously unseen levels. In deference to the importance of these developments, this book is devoted to answering, through the use of case studies, four important questions: How have think tanks used their abilities as ideational actors to change understandings of security in Asia? What historical and political circumstances led to this? What does this say about the influence of think tanks and think tank networks in the region? And, finally, what does this mean for the future of security governance in Asia? In answering these questions, this book adds to existing literature on the political influence of think tanks, in particular it contributes to the study of Asian think tanks in three discrete ways.

First, it updates and goes beyond the previous literature published on think tanks in the 1990s and early 2000s. Globalisation and rapid political changes in Asian domestic and regional politics have rendered these works largely out of date. Earlier literature, while important and insightful, largely examined the role and influence of think tanks that were often governmentally authorised and functioning in non-democratic states and contexts (Abelson 2006 provides a good overview). While, for some countries, this is still the case, for others the political landscape has changed. Foremost, there has been a general trend towards democratisation and countries that were not democratic now are (Indonesia), though others have lost ground (Thailand). As a general rule, political opportunities for Asian think tanks have opened up as the growing demand for policy advice has surpassed domestic government’s internal institutional capacities for research (Rüland 2002). Globalisation and the development of increasingly crowded international fora mean that think tanks have more opportunities than ever before to interact with political decision-makers. As such, previous scholarship focusing on if think tanks have any political relevance in Asia has to (or needs to) give way to literature examining how to quantify the intangible influence that they have.

Asian think tanks themselves have also changed. Their numbers have expanded at an astonishing rate, and a landscape once dominated by governmentally controlled policy institutes has been transformed into an increasingly diverse policy community. Many emerging think tanks enjoy high levels of autonomy and are largely free of governmental influence. While not commensurate to their contemporaries in Europe and North America, Asian think tanks are also benefiting from increasingly active civil and philanthropic cultures. Even governmentally affiliated think tanks are hedging political boundaries and becoming more critical of governmental policies, a change driven by their need to demonstrate continued policy relevance and bolstered by their ability to secure outside funding.

Most interestingly, Asian think tanks are progressively moving towards network-centric structures. Networks have been vital for the dissemination of think tank ideas, and pseudo-institutionalised networks have become increasingly influential as globalisation and democratisation alter the political landscape in Asia. Current manifestations of think tank networks are distant cousins to those that existed in the 1980s and 1990s. Having evolved beyond their initial identity as advisors and legitimisers of government policy, contemporary Asian think tanks have become active developers and promoters of new forms of security governance. While the first two case studies provided in this book still fall into the category of ‘informal’ or Track II political actors, the last two case studies focusing on the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and the MacArthur Foundation’s Asia Security Initiative (ASI) are arguably so far outside of the traditional conceptualisations of ‘Track II’ to be something else entirely. However, examining the differences and similarities among these think tank networks offers a fascinating glimpse into the growing prevalence and power of these unique networks in Asian foreign policy.

Second, this book adds discursive institutionalism (DI) to the repertoire of tools available for think tank analysis. All of the case studies offered in this book, with one exception, have not yet been examined using this innovative theoretical lens. Yet, DI offers valuable tools to examine the connections between the ideas promoted by think tanks and their potential influence on regional governing institutions. Additionally, this is the only study that addresses the creation of discursive space by non-state actors and examines it as a political tool used to influence regional security paradigms. Think tanks are not only providing political locations for discussion, as identified in earlier literature, but are also controlling these locations and the ideas introduced in order to alter regional security paradigms and elicit desired policy responses.

Last, this book provides the only comparative evaluation of think tank networks in Asia to date. Certain networks such as the ASEAN-Institutes for Strategic and International Studies (AI) and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) have been around for decades, and new networks are continuously emerging; yet no comparative analysis of these networks has occurred. For the sake of clarity and political relevance, this book focuses on Asian think tank promotion of the non-traditional security (NTS) agenda. The NTS agenda has become a fixture of network dialogues, and all large networks have promoted it in some form or another. These concurrent efforts give credence to the assertion that many think tank networks are operating as part of a larger epistemic community, a community with the power to determine what ideas and norms will shape the future security culture of the region. As this book will show, think tanks are influential players in this new landscape and, through their judicious endorsement of certain ideas, have helped determine the future structure of regional security governance.

Contemporary security in Asia

At the end of the Cold War, Asia faced a strategic security situation characterised by previously suppressed, unrecognised or emerging sources of insecurity. Despite the lingering salience of military, balance of power and deterrence concerns, states in the region increasingly found their attention drawn to transboundary sources of insecurity stemming from economic, political, social or environmental factors. Soon labelled NTS issues, their growing relevance has been underlined by the instability resulting from the Asian financial collapse of 1997–98, the outbreak of SARS and Avian influenza, illegal migration, terrorism and the political consequences of accelerating environmental degradation. For the majority of Asian states, “non-military threats to regime survival are more likely to materialize than traditional military threats” (Arase 2010: 810). However, most of these issues are incompatible with traditional concepts of security and thus challenge the appropriateness and utility of state and military-centric security paradigms. NTS issues defy traditional state-based security structures by manifesting across state borders. Further complicating their governance, NTS issues often appear with little warning (natural disasters, pandemic diseases, terrorism) or so subtly (illegal migration, financial instability, environmental degradation) that their security implications are initially overlooked. As a result, states have been forced to re-evaluate their approaches to regional security governance.

A multitude of actors have assumed active roles in identifying, framing and providing advice on NTS threats – Asian think tanks being one of the most dominant. These think tanks have pushed for the acknowledgement of NTS issues as threats to security and emphasised the importance of effective security governance. Think tank voices have also called attention to the failure of existing modes of Asian security governance to effectively address NTS issues at the regional level. However, the region has historically shied away from developing strong security institutions, and this is evident in the inability of current institutions to deal with the complicated and transboundary nature of most NTS threats.

Regional institutions are a reflection of the norms defining Asian governance and diplomacy (Ba 2009), and incorporating the NTS agenda into institutions is vastly more complex than ‘securitising’ them and adding them to the list of problems under the scope of traditional security paradigms (Hameiri and Jones 2011a). The NTS agenda necessitates a re-definition of security, including a re-evaluation of how security is to be achieved, who is being secured and against what (Tan and Boutin 2001). Foremost, it widens the concept of security beyond military threats to include instability stemming from economic, political, environmental or social sources (these four categories were articulated by Buzan et al. in 1998). It also highlights the transboundary and complex origins of emerging security problems and acknowledges that domestic circumstances in one state can negatively impact neighbouring states or the region as a whole (Acharya 2009a). Last, NTS removes the state as the sole referent object of security and replaces it within a “framework that encompasses the security of individuals, societies and groups” (Caballero-Anthony and Cook 2013: 3).

NTS challenges have profound consequences for state stability; however, they often defy management at the state level. Because of this, state-centric security governance has failed to adequately accommodate these issues; and existing security mechanisms based on this type of governance are increasingly viewed as outdated and ineffective. Thus, NTS issues undermine existing security mechanisms, challenge the validity of state-centric models of security governance and problematise the acceptability of the state as the sole provider and object of security (Hameiri and Jones 2011a).

Re-evaluating security in this way threatens entrenched and long-held norms of Asian diplomacy (Hameiri and Jones 2011a). Since the formation of ASEAN, regional institutions have favoured informal processes characterised by weak institutionalisation, preferences for dialogue, consensus-based forms of decision-making and conflict avoidance rather than resolution (Caballero-Anthony 2005). The NTS agenda, however, demands a direct engagement with the politically awkward and sensitive security issues threatening the region – much to the discomfort of regional actors. It also calls for collective and cooperative security governance backed by strong forms of regional governance, an approach that is divergent from the traditional norms of Asian regionalism that emphasise the centrality of the state (Morada 2010). Asia as a region is suspicious of collective or cooperative security arrangements and has taken pains to avoid the institutionalisation of regional security structures. Traditional norms of diplomacy favour non-confrontational and gradual approaches when dealing with security issues. These drawn-out methods have quickly been outpaced by the rapidly changing security environment in Asia.

The conflict between traditional security norms (and the institutions based upon these norms) with the growing demands for more flexible forms of NTS governance has resulted in a unique paradox for Asian governing actors. The most pressing security issues in the region are the very same issues that are precluded from discussion because of their sensitive and transboundary natures. This paradox is incontrovertibly intertwined with the deeply contested transition from traditional to non-traditional understandings of security occurring in Asia (Hameiri and Jones 2012). State and non-state actors alike are struggling to reconcile existing governing structures with the practical security realities of the region. In general, states have settled for persevering with the status quo, while non-state actors (in particular, think tanks) have emerged as advocates of new forms of security governance.

It is due to a quirk of Asian political history that think tanks have taken up the unusual role of NTS champions. Think tanks first emerged in Asia in response to a growing need for policy analysis in the region. Think tanks were a way for governing regimes to get the policy advice they needed without having to share authority (Rüland 2002). Many Asian governments lacked the capacity and expertise to respond to NTS issues and utilised think tank knowledge to meet their policy analysis needs (Rüland 2002). Over time, states grew accustomed to turning to think tanks for policy advice and it became the norm for regional institutions to intentionally divert divisive security issues to think tanks for analysis and discussion. In 1994, the first Chairman’s Statement from the ASEAN Regional Forum articulated what was already common practice in the region. It stated that “[g]iven the delicate nature of many of the subjects being considered by the ARF, there is merit in moving, [sic] the ARF process along two tracks” (ASEAN Regional Forum 1994). In this context, Track II refers specifically to the networks of think tanks and policy research institutes in Asia that were believed to contribute “greatly to confidence-building measures in the region” (ASEAN Regional Forum 1994). There is a long history of Track II involvement in regional diplomacy, and it was a logical progression for states to turn to think tanks to address emerging security issues, including NTS issues. As a consequence, think tank organised dialogues and networks have been the primary venues for the discussion and debate of many types of problems in Asia.

The paradox keeping formal processes from engaging with and governing NTS issues has seemingly opened up governing opportunities to non-state actors. Any analysis of security that focuses solely on states misses half of the governing picture. In the absence of state leadership, it is apparent that think tanks have been active in managing and shaping the political processes around the NTS agenda. Think tanks have articulated NTS threats, set agendas for their management and devised political solutions. This raises important questions concerning the exact function of think tanks in Asian security governance. Can we think of think tank processes as new forms of security governance? After all, Hameiri and Jones articulate important aspects of governance as “defining the nature and sources of security problems” as well as “devising plans and policies to ameliorate them” (Hameiri and Jones 2011a: 7), and think tanks have done both regarding NTS issues.

Using the authority granted to Track II processes, think tanks have championed to regional decision-makers a comprehensive political agenda based upon NTS issues. And they appear to have met with a notable degree of success. The agendas of both formal and informal governing processes are beginning to reflect a shift towards NTS issues and a commensurate acknowledgement of the complex political and governing changes necessary to address them. Think tanks have been very active in this process, and there is evidence that the promotion of NTS ideas is, at least in part, contributing to institutional changes in regional security governance.

In light of their success in cultivating new understandings of security, the function of think tanks as governance entrepreneurs deserves a closer look. Foremost, think tanks hold relatively little political authority and work on the periphery of the political process. How is it that they have seemingly exercised such a high degree of ideational influence? Second, the political environment in Asia is inhospitable both to informal political actors, such as think tanks, and to structural or ideational change. This is particularly true of actors promoting ideas that so strongly conflict with current norms and can be interpreted as challenging state sovereignty. Yet, somehow think tanks have managed to successfully introduce and promote such an agenda. Their success in re-defining security and pushing for new forms of governance implies that the influence of think tanks on governance is deeper than is suggested in previous literature. Thus, it may be more appropriate to conceptualise think tanks as active political actors pursuing their own political agendas rather than as passive producers of policy advice following political goals set by states.

This book explores how think tanks and their networks have approached the promotion of the NTS agenda, particularly in light of their overt lack of political power. Asian think tanks appear to have attained political and institutional influence via their expertise as ideational actors; despite their informal and non-governmental positions, they have come to wield political influence through their promotion of ideas. Previous research has noted that think tanks are adept at moving ideas across political space and acting as the “intermediary or interlocutor between knowledge and power, science and the state” (Stone 2007: 259). They have also been labelled as ‘policy entrepreneurs’ who through their “advocacy of certain preferred policy positions … have played a key part in policy thinking in national and international affairs” (Stone and Nesadurai 1999: 2). However, how exactly they have mobilised in the role of policy entrepreneurs, or even as governance entrepreneurs (Avant et al. 2010), is unclear in the contexts of NTS issues. The terms ‘policy entrepreneurs’, ‘policy brokers’ and ‘idea brokers’ are commonly applied to think tanks and their networks (for discrete examples, see Kingdon 2003; Stone 2000a, 2004 and 2011).

Asian think tanks appear to have adapted specific strategies to augment and expand their ideational influence. Foremost, they have formed a series of transregional networks. The first such networks manifested alongside regional governing organisations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), with the intent of providing timely and relevant policy analysis to regional governing structures. Over time, these networks, and others that have subsequently developed, have been subsumed into governing processes and now provide important mechanisms for introducing and disseminating policy ideas.

Second, think tanks have gone out of their way to create region-spanning and non-governmental political spaces (forums and dialogues). These spaces are neutral venues where new and innovative ideas can be introduced into policy processes, and where state and non-state actors can meet to communicate, discuss and workshop ideas. Regional policymakers have shown a growing preference for these venues as they offer sources of novel policy solutions.

Think tanks control the discourse that occurs in these ‘discursive spaces’, and they have used this authority to influence ideational processes. Discourse, as it is described by DI, is the “interactive process of conveying ideas” and encompasses not only what is said but also other variables, such as the speaker and the context of the ideational exchange (Schmidt 2008: 303). Think tanks have used their control over these political spaces to influence what ideas are introduced and how they are perceived (framed) to privilege NTS ideas over other interpretations and directions for security governance. In doing so, they have used non-traditional security ideas as catalysts to promote new forms of security governance in A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Discursive Institutionalism and Institutional Change
• 3. Think Tanks and Non-Traditional Security
• 4. Association of Southeast Asian Nations: Institutes of Strategic and International Studies
• 5. Expanding Beyond ASEAN: Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific
• 6. The International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Shangri-La Dialogue
• 7. The MacArthur Foundation’s Asia Security Initiative
• 8. Think Tanks as Governance Entrepreneurs
• Appendix A: List of Institutes in the Asia Security Initiative
• List of Interviews
• Bibliography
• Index