scholarly journals Assessing Indonesia’s Leadership in the Advancement of ASEAN Political-Security Community under President Joko Widodo

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gibran Mahesa Drajat
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Member States ◽  
Security Community ◽  
Political Security

<p>This paper aims to examine Indonesia’s leadership in ASEAN as the regional organization advances its community building in areas of political-security. Indonesia, the largest state in Southeast Asia both from geographic and economic size, is known for its <em>de facto</em> leadership within the regional integration process of ASEAN. Such integration is mostly prominent in areas of multilateral engagement, conflict management, and democracy as well as human rights promotion. With President Joko Widodo at the helm of Indonesia’s presidency since October 2014, Indonesia has reoriented its foreign policy cornerstone on ASEAN into other channels that best serve its national interest. As Indonesia repositions its focus from ASEAN, there is a need to evaluate whether the trajectory of ASEAN Political-Security Community will continue to thrive under the consensual decision-making process among its ten member states known as ASEAN way.</p><p> </p><p>To evaluate Indonesia’s leadership in the advancement of ASEAN Political-Security Community under President Joko Widodo, the paper will review Indonesia’s initiatives to ASEAN and how they contribute towards Southeast Asia’s regionalism. Subsequently, three areas of Indonesia’s leadership in ASEAN Political-Security Community building will be examined: the maintenance of ASEAN Centrality, South China Sea dispute management, and promotion of democracy and human rights. The paper concludes that ASEAN way works not only when ASEAN member states find a common ground on regional issues that affect their respective domestic politics. A presence of informal and voluntary leadership where “matured” member states bring about initiative and persuasion is needed to maintain ASEAN’s strategic relevance in Asia-Pacific. For this reason, Indonesia’s legitimacy as an informal leader in ASEAN plays an important role to ensure that the organization remain united and central to its member states.</p><p><strong>Keywords</strong>: ASEAN Political-Security Community, Indonesian Foreign Policy, Regional Leadership</p><p> </p>

1. Introduction: US foreign policy—past, present, and future

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Cox ◽  
Doug Stokes
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Us Foreign Policy ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
White House ◽  
Pressure Groups ◽  
East Russia ◽  
Key Issues

This work examines how domestic politics and culture shape US foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the role of institutions and processes. It considers the ways in which pressure groups and elites determine influence what the United States does abroad, the importance of regional shifts and media and their impact on the making of US foreign policy, and US relations with Europe, the Middle East, Russia, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and Africa. The text also discusses key issues relevant to American foreign policy, such as global terrorism, the global environment, gender, and religion. It argues that whoever resides in the White House will continue to give the military a central role in the conduct of US foreign policy, and that whoever ‘runs’ American foreign policy will still have to deal with the same challenges both at home and abroad.

Criticizing the Handling of Rohingya Refugees in Southeast Asia by ASEAN and Its Members

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 229
Author(s):  
Widya Priyahita Pudjibudojo
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Policy Analysis ◽  
Standing Position ◽  
Security Threat ◽  
Cultural Issue ◽  
Security Community ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Humanistic Approach ◽  
Political Security

This article is a combination of scientific and policy papers. It will critically review how the Rohingya refugees were handled in Southeast Asia. The method used is qualitative policy analysis. The author will compare the statements contained in the ASEAN Charter, the Blueprint of the ASEAN Political-Security Community, and the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights (AHRD) as legal umbrellas which guarantee the fulfilment of human rights in Southeast Asia with the policy responses of ASEAN and some of its members (Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia) toward the flow of Rohingya refugees. The policy analysis will target the substance and implications of the refugees. In general, there are two approaches to refugee policies, ‘security’ with an orientation toward state sovereignty and ‘humanism (human security)’ which is pro-refugee. The author uses the second approach as a framework and a standing position. Based on the results of the analysis, the security approach is far more dominant in the handling of Rohingya than humanism. The wave of Rohingya refugees is read as a security threat, economic burden, potential cultural issue, and other negative things that ultimately put the refugees in a worse position. The author criticizes this and suggests a number of recommendations to pursue a more humanistic approach.

A Desultory Defense of Democracy: OAS Resolution 1080 and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

2006 ◽  
Vol 48 (03) ◽  
pp. 93-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry S. Levitt
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
State Behavior ◽  
Member States ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Collective Response ◽  
Competing Hypotheses ◽  
Multilateral Diplomacy

AbstractThis article evaluates the effectiveness of OAS mechanisms for safeguarding democracy through multilateral diplomacy, what some scholars have dubbed the interamerican defense of democracy regime. Drawing on a range of international relations theories, this study derives competing hypotheses about member states' responses to democratic crises in the Americas. It then analyzes all instances in which a collective response—that is, an application of Resolution 1080 or the Inter-American Democratic Charter—was debated in the OAS between 1991 and 2002. Patterns of state behavior suggest that domestic politics, rather than the structural or systemic traits of the interamerican system, best explain foreign policy responses to crises of democracy in the region. The OAS record in confronting such crises is uneven.

The Indonesian Government and the ASEAN Charter

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Rüland
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Regional Integration ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
The Other ◽  
Soft Law ◽  
New Order ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
Indonesian Government ◽  
Localization Theory

The Indonesian government was the most significant actor in the ASEAN Charter debate and the relevance of regionalism for Indonesia’s foreign policy. It negotiated the Charter with the other ASEAN governments and strongly influenced the domestic debate on ASEAN and Indonesia’s role in it. The chapter outlines changes in Indonesian foreign policymaking, which became a multistakeholder process after the demise of President Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime in May 1998. Applying Acharya’s localization theory, it examines how leading government exponents—the president, the foreign minister, and high-ranking diplomats—framed, grafted, and pruned European concepts of regional integration. The chapter shows that although the Indonesian government was the most vocal among ASEAN members in propagating EU-style reforms, it localized core reformist concepts such as democracy and human rights with extant local ideas such as organicism, soft law, leadership ambitions, ancient welfare and security conceptions, and the ASEAN Way.

Diplomacy in the ASEAN

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Pacific Region ◽  
Core Element ◽  
Member States ◽  
Political Security

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the focal point for regional diplomacy and interstate governance in Southeast Asia. Since its foundation in 1967, the organization’s membership, institutional footprint, and mandate have expanded markedly. The now ten member states—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—and its professed ASEAN Community are engaged in an ever-expanding array of regional initiatives across political-security, economic, and sociocultural concerns. The organization is of growing importance for states beyond the region as well, given the region’s place within the wider “Indo-Pacific” region and ongoing tensions between the United States and China. The literature on diplomacy in ASEAN is vast and varied. Much material centers on the origins, evolution, and efficacy of ASEAN as a regional organization and its diplomatic principles and norms, the so-called ASEAN way. The literature surveyed here examines the institutional and normative context within which ASEAN diplomacy operates and highlights major contemporary issues in the study of ASEAN diplomacy. This article is structured in eleven sections. It begins with a series of general, canonical accounts of ASEAN diplomacy and governance. The second section highlights literature engaged in a debate over the efficacy and consequence of ASEAN and its diplomatic norms. The third section surveys literature that centers attention on a core element of the study of ASEAN diplomacy: the prospects of a security community in Southeast Asia. The fourth section surveys a growing and related literature that examines the practice and discourse in ASEAN diplomacy. The fifth section highlights literature that situates ASEAN diplomacy within the context of the institutions of the wider Asia-Pacific region, including the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asian Summit (EAS), and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+). Section six focuses on regional peace and conflict management between ASEAN member states. The seventh section explores two additional intraregional issues: leadership in ASEAN and relations with the so-called CLMV states of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, with a focus on Myanmar. Section eight centers on track two diplomacy and the role of civil society organizations in regional diplomacy and governance. Section nine examines institutional evolution with a focus on the changing organizational and normative context of ASEAN diplomacy. Section ten highlights ASEAN-China relations with a focus on the diplomatic management of the South China Sea disputes. The final section surveys a growing literature that places ASEAN diplomacy and governance in a comparative context.

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