Hard choices: security, democracy and regionalism in Southeast Asia - D. Emmerson (ed)

DONALD K. EMMERSON (ed.)

Hard choices: security, democracy, and regionalism in Southeast Asia

Singapore: ISEAS, 2009

xxi + 313 pp., appendix, index

ISBN 978-981-230-914-3, pb US$29.90

Reviewed by Lee Jones, Queen Mary, University of London

As all the contributors to this volume reflect, the 1997-1998 financial crisis produced unprecedented domestic political upheaval in Southeast Asia and propelled ASEAN onto a course of cautious reinvention. It is therefore an extremely pressing task for analysts to take stock of the last decade and update an increasingly weary literature on ASEAN by probing the relationships between security, democracy and regionalism. Hard choices is a collection of loosely but thematically-related essays by ten serious authors who each make interesting, useful and thought-provoking contributions. However, theoretical engagement is relatively sparse and the book would have benefited from an overarching framework to help structure and guide the contributions. Particularly given many contributors’ focus on Myanmar, ASEAN’s policies towards it, and ASEAN’s recent institutional evolution, an early chapter agreeing a collective account of these matters would have left more space for analysis and argumentation.

The book’s central chapters contain competing interpretations of the difference democratisation has made and might make to regional politics. On the optimistic side, Mely Cabellero-Anthony and (to a lesser extent) Jörn Dosch argue that democratisation has broken elites’ grip over foreign policy, admitting new actors like civil society groups. This, they argue, has produced a new emphasis on democratisation and non-traditional security in ASEAN discourse, suggesting that a role for ASEAN in promoting democracy in countries like Myanmar may not be far-fetched. This message is reinforced by Kyaw Yin Hlaing and Erik Martinez Kuhonta, whose chapters on Myanmar both advocate a more forceful ASEAN line. (However, several of their recommendations have already been tried without success – a fact missed by those who reiterate the traditional view of ASEAN as hidebound by non-interference until very recently.) Kyaw’s chapter also provides a useful and original account of Myanmar’s internal deadlock, bravely highlighting the intransigence and weakness of the opposition as a key factor.

On the less optimistic side, veteran ASEAN official Termsak Chalermpalanupap provides a highly informative overview of ASEAN’s institutional development which will be useful for all students of ASEAN. Termsak stresses the very real limitations to ASEAN’s capacity for collective action, warning that the Association is so divided that using certain institutions could spell its demise; gradualism is the only route to successful reform. This contradicts those who, like Cabellero-Anthony, see the mere mention of new discursive terms as cause for hope. Whether ASEAN’s new discourse and institutions matter will arguably depend on the outcome of struggles between those who want to use them to create social progress and those who simply want to refurbish ASEAN’s tattered reputation with minimal actual change.

Simon Tay and Michael Malley’s insightful chapters focus on specific issues – ‘haze’ and nuclear energy – to demonstrate that democratisation does not (as other contributors imply) automatically produce either more liberal policies or enhanced regional cooperation. Rather, they seem to argue, what matters more than democratic institutions is the forces mediated through them. In the case of Indonesian haze, for instance, venal bureaucratic and business interests currently overrule environmentalist groups, stifling regional cooperation. Democratisation can give vent to illiberal, nationalist and uncooperative sentiments, particularly when dominated (as ASEAN polities are) by cynical oligarchs.

It is disappointing, therefore, that none of the chapters engages in systematic analysis of the domestic social forces at work in ASEAN states, which would provide many clues as democratisation’s likely impact on security and regional cooperation. David Martin Jones comes closest to this in his chapter, but despite outlining the corrupt, oppressive nature of ASEAN’s ruling classes, he comes down on the side of the demons, celebrating authoritarianism’s capacity to adapt Southeast Asian societies to the vicissitudes of ‘millenarian capital’, claiming Southeast Asians have a ‘cultural preference’ for such arrangements, and thus ignoring Southeast Asians’ own struggles for freedom and justice. It is unclear why Jones felt it necessary to add to his otherwise solid defence of ‘pragmatic’ regionalism, in recognition of ASEAN’s fragility, a ringing endorsement of capitalist authoritarianism. Nor does he explain why ASEAN has committed itself to ‘democracy’ and ‘good governance’.

On balance, the evidence in Hard choices seems to favour the pessimist viewpoint. The basis for concluding that civil society has shattered elites’ monopoly on policymaking is rather weak. None of the pro-intervention authors sufficiently counter the pragmatist challenge that ASEAN coherence could not withstand the adoption of a more liberal-interventionist posture. However, this is a contingent judgement which should not lead us simply to endorse the status quo. As Kyaw, Tay and Malley’s chapters imply, the fate of individual countries and the overall direction and content of ASEAN regionalism depends ultimately on the struggles of ASEAN’s own citizens. A clear-sighted analysis of the respective strengths and weaknesses of the forces of movement and reaction, without succumbing to the defeatism of endorsing authoritarianism or the romanticism of believing that democratic institutions alone imply the victory of civil society (or that ASEAN can do much to create such institutions), is therefore vital for understanding the region’s prospects.