Mapping Asean

For half a century, ten dynamic nations in Southeast Asia have been implementing a shared vision of economic growth, sustainable development, and cultural progress. Today, the economies of those nations are linked inextricably with the future of greater Asia as well as with the United States and the other Western countries. With authoritarianism and protectionism on the rise around the world and the catastrophic effects of global warming making action urgent, the nations that form the Association of Southeast Asia Nations are more relevant and under greater political and social stress than ever. In these illuminating pages, David Carden, the first American resident ambassador to ASEAN, paints a vivid portrait of the regional and global cooperation required to meet today, and interconnected future. Carden takes us behind the scenes as the leaders of these ten nations work to prepare their countries and their region for the 21st century. Carden persuasively argues that the unfolding story of the ASEAN nations is a story for the entire worldthat we are all increasingly interdependent and confronted with the existential need to solve the same set of challenges.

For half a century, ten dynamic nations in Southeast Asia have been implementing a shared vision of economic growth, sustainable development, and cultural progress. Today, the economies of those nations are linked inextricably with the future of greater Asia as well as with the United States and the other Western countries. With authoritarianism and protectionism on the rise around the world and the catastrophic effects of global warming making action urgent, the nations that form the Association of Southeast Asia Nations are more relevant and under greater political and social stress than ever. In these illuminating pages, David Carden, the first American resident ambassador to ASEAN, paints a vivid portrait of the regional and global cooperation required to meet today, and interconnected future. Carden takes us behind the scenes as the leaders of these ten nations work to prepare their countries and their region for the 21st century. Carden persuasively argues that the unfolding story of the ASEAN nations is a story for the entire worldthat we are all increasingly interdependent and confronted with the existential need to solve the same set of challenges.

This book examines successful firms operating within the ASEAN Economic Community, their reasons for success, and their role in regional integration.

This report presents an assessment of the links among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the three subregional programs (Greater Mekong Subregion [GMS], Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area [BIMP-EAGA], Indonesia–Malaysia–Thailand Growth Triangle [IMT-GT], and the ASEAN) and is the first study that explicitly maps and analyzes the strategic program and institutional links among the three subregional programs and ASEAN. The report is based on desk reviews of official documents; national consultations with governments and private stakeholders; consultations with the secretariats of the three programs and ASEAN; commissioned studies by Asian Development Bank and other international organizations; and independent assessments by academics, practitioners, and research institutions by academics, practitioners, and research institutions.

Institutional activities have remarkably transformed East Asia, a region once known for the absence of regionalism and regime-building efforts. Yet the dynamics of this Asian institutionalization have remained an understudied area of research. This book offers one of the first scholarly attempts to clarify what constitutes institutionalization in East Asia and to systematically trace the origins, discern the features, and analyze the prospects of ongoing institutionalization processes in the world’s most dynamic region. Institutionalizing East Asia comprises eight essays, grouped thematically into three sections. Part I considers East and Southeast Asia as focal points of inter-state exchanges and traces the institutionalization of inter-state cooperation first among the Southeast Asian states and then among those of the wider East Asia. Part II examines the institutionalization of regional collaboration in four domains: economy, security, natural disaster relief, and ethnic conflict management. Part III discusses the institutionalization dynamics at the sub-regional and inter-regional levels. The essays in this book offer a useful source of reference for scholars and researchers specializing in East Asia, regional architecture, and institution-building in international relations. They will also be of interest to postgraduate and research students interested in ASEAN, the drivers and limits of international cooperation, as well as the role of regional multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region.

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.

In 2007, a survey – the first of its kind – was carried out to gauge young people’s awareness of and attitudes towards ASEAN, following the decision by ASEAN heads of state and government to accelerate the date for accomplishing an integrated ASEAN Community by 2015. Views and attitudes from university undergraduates in the ten ASEAN member states who participated in the survey indicated a nascent sense of identification as citizens of the region as well as their priorities for important aspects of regional integration. An update to the 2007 survey was carried out in 2014–15 among the same target population but with an expanded scope of twenty-two universities and institutes of higher learning across the ten member states. In the updated survey, we found that there are more ASEAN-positive attitudes region-wide, but there are also increases in ASEAN-ambivalent attitudes at country-level in some ASEAN members. Young people’s priorities for important aspects of regional integration have also shifted away from economic cooperation to tourism and development cooperation. New questions in the latest survey also allow us to demonstrate the descriptive vocabulary and cognitive maps students hold for the region and its nations. This book details the key findings of the updated survey compared to the earlier survey. These include nation-by-nation results and a summary of region-wide trends, as well as what they suggest for the prospects of ASEAN integration beyond 2015. These are assessed in a chapter providing broad recommendations for policymakers and educators in the ASEAN member states.

This report shares results of a regionwide survey undertaken in late 2007 among over 2,000 students from leading universities across ASEAN member countries. The survey addressed questions on whether youths today consider themselves to be citizens of ASEAN; whether the region's youth are enthusiastic or skeptical about ASEAN; how well the region's youth know ASEAN and its members; and their concerns for the Association and the region. Survey findings indicate a nascent sense of ownership and stake in ASEAN, despite some clear differences in knowledge and opinions on the grouping. It is interesting to note that the students agreed on the importance of economic cooperation and addressing poverty and development needs; and share a desire to know more about the region. Responses from the survey provide a useful source of information for ASEAN policy-makers on promoting awareness about ASEAN and the challenges and opportunities the region faces in pursuing regional integration.