Is the ASEAN Way a new path for democracy in Southeast Asia? By Irene Rodríguez


The 25th of April the UPF held a conference about democracy and Southeast Asia. The name of the conference was “Democracy in the European Union and its Impact in Asian Countries” and it was given by professor Rajendra Jain, of Jawaharlal Nehru University. It was a very interesting conference and taking into account which is the subject of our project, it was a perfect fit.

The conference explored different subjects such as the existence or not of a European identity, what is democracy, sovereignty of states, the idea of democracy that the EU tries to extend…

Professor Jain argued that there’s no such thing as a common European identity because Europe is formed by different countries that still maintain their own identity, so there’s no sense of community. The citizens of the Eutopean Union don’t feel represented by its institutions.

The lack of identity makes it difficult for Europe to be an influential actor when it comes to politics. The European Union is an important economic actor, but since there isn’t consensus in many political decisions, it is difficult for them to be influential. Professor Jain also highlights the fact that the European Union focuses on soft power and diplomacy more than in hard power, but the rest of the world doesn’t have the same view as the EU. For the rest of the world, hard power is a tool to still be considered and in that sense the EU isn’t a great power.

To conclude with the European section of the conference, Professor Rajendra Jain explained that the lack of hard power makes the EU an actor that doesn’t have as much influence as they think they do. That’s another problem with the EU, they think very highly of themselves, but the truth is that globally they aren’t perceived as a power to be considered because they fail at agreeing in the most basic concepts. As the professor said, it doesn’t matter that the different countries agree in the ninety-five percent of the decisions they need to make, what matters is that they don’t agree in the five percent that matters.

The European Union acts as an advocate for democracy in the international sphere, but as professor Rajendra Jain says, the democracy that the EU promotes is a very Eurocentric one. It doesn’t take into account that different regions of the world demand different approaches of democracy and that what may work in one country, maybe won’t work in another one.

Although Professor Jain didn’t mention ASEAN in his conference, I felt curious about what his impression about the Association was. I didn’t’ have the opportunity to ask him about it, but the question got stuck in my head. Does ASEAN have a biggest impact on the Southeast Asia region then the EU? How does the ASEAN Way affect democracy in that region?

The ASEAN way is the methodology that ASEAN countries use to solve diplomatic problems at the same time that respects the cultural norms of Southeast Asian countries. What this approach to problem solving does is that it tries to achieve an agreement between all the countries, they have to reach a consensus in order to apply decisions. The dialogues are private between the countries and try to maintain the public opinion away in order to save the privacy of each country so they don’t have to face negative consequences of the decisions they make, consequences that may lead to future conflicts.

Even though it’s said that the ASEAN way could be implemented in global diplomacy, it also has its critiques. For instance, in ASEAN the fact that they have to reach consensus makes that some issues, like human rights, are dismissed in many occasions. Here can be included crisis such as the Rohingya in Myanmar. Thanks to the no intervention policies, ASEAN member can’t do anything to try to solve the crisis, since it’s an internal issue of Myanmar. That raises concerns of Human Rights advocates, that wonder if the ASEAN Way is just the “rich and wealthy way”.

I think the consensus is important to no step over some countries that may not be that powerful, but I also think that when it comes to issues such as Human Rights, consensus shouldn’t be the way to do things. Meaning, if the other countries agree to intervene in an issue (not necessarily in a military way) it shouldn’t be the country involved the one who determine whether or not action should be taken.

In conclusion, I think that the ASEAN Way can be important to stablish a new vision of democracy in the Southeast of Asia, but I don’t think it’s the perfect way to deal with important issues such as Human Rights, especially when the countries involved are the ones that need to be intervened.

Irene Rodríguez Fuentes

Bibliography

BBC, 2018. BBC News. [En línea]
Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/country_profiles/4114415.stm
[Last access: 25th April 2018].

U.S. Government, 2018. U.S. Department of State. [En línea]
Available at: https://www.state.gov/p/eap/regional/asean/
[Last access: 25th April 2018].


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