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Consequently, the thesis adopts this perspective.

In fact, there are a number of reasons this thesis adopts a constructivist view of ASEAN. One of these is that this perspective takes into account the vital role of ASEAN’s norms in its internal and external relations. In other words, it adopts a constructivist perspective because its claim that ASEAN has, for the better or the worse, developed its own set of norms to guide its internal and external affairs. Indeed, it agrees with Acharya (2005: 113) that “ASEAN regionalism has been primarily a normative regionalism” and Kivimaki (2001: 7) that ASEAN as “a normative community”, which is somehow similar to the community, constructed by liberal democracies.93

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While proposing an English School perspective to explain ASEAN, Narine (2008: 412) also acknowledges that constructivism offers the most useful, though limited, analysis of ASEAN.

Put differently, like the EU, ASEAN is a community building institution, which has developed its own norms to “mediate disputes and guide interaction between its members, and to underpin a process of identity construction” (Haacke 2005: 4) as well as to respond to external challenges and forces (Acharya 2006: 157).

93 _{Yet, he distinguishes ASEAN’s ‘normative community’ from a ‘normative community’, which is}

constructed by liberal democracies that is premised on liberal and democratic norms. Later, the chapter will develop in more detail this difference.

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The second reason the thesis opts for a constructivist approach to ASEAN is that it recognises the contribution of ASEAN and its norms to security in Southeast Asia. While it debatable to argue that ASEAN is a security community, it is plausible to maintain that ASEAN and its norms have significantly contributed to regional security. This position is upheld by many scholars on ASEAN. Kivimaki (2001) maintains that ASEAN’s founding nations were able to cope with their intra-regional conflicts and achieved a long peace, because they respected the principle of non-interference into each other’s domestic politics. In a later work, he also shows that ASEAN has pacified its members as well as intra-ASEAN interstate relations (Kivimaki 2007). Another important point he makes is that to assess the success or failure of ASEAN and its norms, one should not do so from the viewpoint of European mechanisms and objectives of integration. ASEAN is an instrument for Southeast Asian, not European, integration, and consequently, it needs to be explained against the backdrop of Southeast Asian objectives, not European ones (Kivimaki 2007: 432). Premised on ASEAN’s 1967 Bangkok Declaration, he points out that one of ASEAN’s two major goals is regional stability (Kivimaki 2007: 434).94 Judging by this objective, ASEAN has achieved its goal because Southeast Asia is more peaceful – or more exactly, less conflictual – than its pre-ASEAN period.95

Moreover, ASEAN has played a lead role in the creation and maintenance of wider regional institutions, e.g. ARF, APT and EAS, which involve major powers, e.g. China, Japan, Russia and the US, even though economically and militarily ASEAN is weaker than these powers.

Kivimaki (2001; 2007) also argues that ASEAN’s normative agenda contributed to this stability. This view is also held by other scholars, e.g. Dosch and Mols (1998), Acharya (2001; 2005a; 2005b) Tan and Cossa (2001), Jetly (2003) and Caballero-Anthony (2005). For instance, Caballero-Anthony (2005: 22) underlines ASEAN’s success in terms of its conflict management and avoidance and maintains that its norms contribute its achievements. Similarly, Dosch and Mols (1998: 172) highlight the success of the ASEAN’s norms and its model.

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94 _{ASEAN’s other declared goal is economic development. However, security is more important because}

security was the rationale behind ASEAN’s foundation and remains the defining feature that determines ASEAN and its role in the region.

ASEAN is the central axis of the regional collaboration (Park 2012: 270) and it has this ‘disproportionate regional influence’ because it

95 _{For him, the absence of a war between ASEAN’s founding members was a significant success because}

prior to its establishment the outlook for regional security was particularly grim.

96 _{No other regional organisations in the developing world, not even MERCOSUR, have managed such}

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possesses a set of principles that are accepted by other regional powers (De Castro 2000; Higgott 2000b; Dieter and Higgott 2002; Stubbs 2002; Eaton and Stubbs 2006; Desker 2008; Stubbs 2008). Thus, not only do ASEAN’s norms guide its internal and external relations. They are also accepted by other regional countries and chosen as the mode of function for ASEAN-plus institutions. The ARF adopted the norms of the TAC and the ASEAN way as its basic legal framework (ARF 1994; Busse 1999: 53; Khong and Nesadurai 2007: 34). The ADMM-Plus too accepted the ASEAN way as its modus

operandi (ADMM 2007; 2009; Teo 2010). The accession to TAC is a precursor to

membership of the EAS.97 Indeed, based on its efforts to develop norms to guide its internal and external relations as well as its attempts to encourage – and, to some extent, its success in persuading – other wider regional organisations to adopt its preferred norms, ASEAN is a notable norm entrepreneur (Katsumata 2003; Acharya 2004; Rüland 2011). Moreover, it can be seen as a normative power because it fits very well the conceptualisation of normative power made by Manners (2002) and De Zutter (2011).98

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ASEAN’s preference for informality and non-binding mechanisms even prevailed American and Australian preferences in the institutional design of APEC (Khong and Nesadurai 2007: 32).

For Manners (2002: 252), the concept of NPE is built on the crucial observation that the most important factor shaping the EU’s international role is what it is. Similarly, it can safely be argued that the most crucial factor defining ASEAN’s role in the wider Pacific-Asia region and its actorness in general is its raison d’être. Loder et al. (2011: 83) convincingly argue that ASEAN has played a central role in the development of East Asian regionalism because has been able to develop widely accepted regional norms. Robinson (2011: 49) even goes further contending “that ASEAN may in fact be much closer to the EU’s own aspiration for normative power than the EU is itself”. For this reason, he concludes that “ASEAN’s [normative] framework has importance in terms of the very edifice on which the normative power Europe thesis has been constructed” (Robinson 2011: 50). While it is debateable to maintain that the EU should learn from ASEAN as Robinson suggests, it is clear that, like the EU, ASEAN is an active norm entrepreneur and an influential normative power. It illustrates well a key argument maintained by the thesis – that is norm entrepreneurs in world politics are not always Western and powerful actors as much of the literature

98 _{For Manners (2002: 239) normative power is defined as its ability to shape conceptions of normal while}

De Zutter (2010: 1122) regards it “as the identity of a power in the international system that shapes the normal in world politics through its norm-driven practices and the adaption of its norms by others”.

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on norms assumes. Non-Western and weak countries or regional organisations also actively engage in norm entrepreneurship.

It is very important to note that not only do constructivist-minded scholars highlight the central part of ASEAN’s norms in its regional and international relations and its active role in norm generation and diffusion. They also underline that the set of norms advocated by ASEAN differ from and even compete with those promoted by other Western powers and the EU in particular. For instance, Stubbs (2008) maintains that by fostering a distinct way of conducting its internal and external relations, which is accepted by regional countries, ASEAN offers an alternative normative model to global governance, which is often dominated by the liberal paradigm advocated by the West. More precisely, ASEAN’s normative paradigm, which centres around the principle of non-interference, diverges from and even opposes the Western model, which focuses on the norm of intervention (Kuhonta 2006: 344; Dunn et al 2010). In other words, the codes of conduct or standards of acceptable behaviour in international relations that ASEAN and its members uphold and promote are not intervention but non-intervention. This point should be underlined because it enables the thesis to explain why the EU and ASEAN disagreed with each other over human rights, East Timor and Myanmar. It also shows that normative power is not always a force for good as it is often maintained by scholars on NPE, e.g. Manners (2002), who regard the EU as something positive in world politics; it can be a source of rivalry and conflict (Steinkohl 2010).

Another important issue underlined by constructivists, e.g. Stubbs (2008), for which a constructivist perspective is adopted, is that the historical context of Southeast Asia significantly shapes ASEAN’s norms. According to this, while norms might have a universal significance, they are often locally interpreted and practised. In one of his works, Leifer (1999: 28-9) argues that ASEAN’s norms are “part and parcel of the standard working practice of international society writ large and not in any way particular and exclusive to the Association or its regional locale”. This is somehow true because ASEAN’s core norms are widely recognised by the international system and strongly upheld by many regional organisations, notably those in the developing world (Kuhonta 2006: 344-5). Yet, his argument is unable to explain why those norms are not fervently advocated by the EU. This point is also very important because it allows the thesis to explain adequately the reason behind ASEAN’s set of norms, which is radically different from the EU’s and why the EU and ASEAN find it difficult to interact with each other.

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In short, a constructivist approach is very useful in describing ASEAN and its norms. Indeed, anchoring its argument in this theoretical perspective and judging by the way ASEAN has espoused norms to inform its internal and external relations and by the fact that its norms have been adopted as the mode of function for other broader regional institutions, the thesis holds that ASEAN is a ‘norm entrepreneur’. As noted, that view is already maintained by some scholars, e.g. Katsumata (2006) and Rüland (2011). Stubbs (2008: 455) labels ASEAN as a ‘norm guardian’ because according to him ASEAN took on boards the norms that had been widely discussed in Asia from the late 1940s through to the 1960s. For Acharya (2011), ASEAN engages in norm subsidiarity. In the current literature, with the exception of Robinson (2011: 51), who maintains that ASEAN embodies the characteristics, e.g. the presence and influence through form and being, of normative power, no work goes further arguing that ASEAN is a normative power. Adopting Manners (2002: 239, 252), who regards a normative power as a power that has the ability to shape the normal in world politics or the power whose influence lies in its being, i.e. what it is, and notably De Zutter (2010: 1122), this thesis contends that, like the EU, ASEAN is a normative power. Yet, such a depiction of ASEAN raises a number of important issues. One of these is, if it is a normative power, what type of normative power it is. In other words, how different is it from a normative power Europe, or more exactly, a cosmopolitan normative power Europe examined in Chapter 4. To answer this, it is vital to examine its norms.