ASEAN, Quo Vadis? Domestic Coalitions and Regional Cooperation

Abstract

This article advances a coalitional approach to understanding ASEAN co-operation as a product of the domestic political forces that conceived and nurtured it. Pivotal leaders throughout the region forged supportive internationalist coalitions at home that favoured domestic and regional political and economic stability and global access. This strategy demanded accommodation and co-optation of backlash states in the region, in an effort to protect the implementation of internationalist agendas across the domestic, regional, and global spheres. Accordingly, ASEAN's military expenditures were characterized by moderation, defensiveness, and transparency to avoid choking the domestic macroeconomic requirements of an internationalist strategy. The post-1997 regional crisis provides a test of both ASEAN's co-operation and a coalitional interpretation as its driving force.