In its 50th year, ASEAN faces a range of contemporary challenges that have called into question ASEAN’s strategic place and security contributions in East Asia. Heightened uncertainties associated with a more confident China and an uncertain United States, as well as pressures generated by great power competition, have raised particular questions about ASEAN’s privileged place – ‘ASEAN centrality’ – in a network of cooperative institutions that ASEAN has been instrumental in creating. Yet, one of the more underappreciated effects of ASEAN institutions has been the ways that they have assured the participation of a varied array of actors of mixed interests and agendas, as well as ongoing cooperative and integrative processes. The result is a complex strategic environment constituted by mixed security imperatives and choices that are not easily compartmentalised. This talk considers the mixed effects of ASEAN institutions on Asia's changing strategic environment and the dynamics of great power competition.
Alice Ba is Professor of Political Science at the University of Delaware and research associate of the ASEAN Studies Center at American University in Washington, DC. She is author of (Re)Negotiating East and Southeast Asia (2009) and co-editor of Institutionalizing East Asia (2016) and forthcoming volumes, Contemporary Southeast Asia and The Philippines in a Post-American World.
Jürgen Haacke is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, within the Institute of Global Affairs, and Associate Professor of International Relations at LSE.
The Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre (SEAC) is a cross-disciplinary, regionally-focused academic centre within the Institute of Global Affairs at LSE.
This lecture is part of a series of SEAC public events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Assocation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEASEAN
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