Kivimaki: The Long Peace of Asia

Political Science Quarterly

Contemporary Southeast Asia

is an excellent and amazingly detailed historical account of ASEAN's first fifty years. The book benefits enormously from Weatherbee's long personal history as a scholar of ASEAN and an unusually well-connected academic who can draw on his experiences working in Southeast Asia to provide personal connections and insights to many of the events he describes. As noted, the book is packed with details about virtually all of the events that have shaped ASEAN during its long history. While the book is primarily descriptive, it does provide some useful analysis of these events. The book stands as a relatively brief yet surprisingly comprehensive overview. For this reviewer, this book will from now on serve as the first reference point for sourcing information about the organization's history. The book's analysis creates a picture of ASEAN as a highly reactive but relatively fragile institution whose accomplishments, over the decades, are worthy of considerable critical scrutiny. In one of the book's more telling chapters (pp. 199-226), Weatherbee reviews numerous examples of territorial conflicts between the member states, many of which remain unresolved or have the potential to flare up again. He notes the ways in which these disputes often came close to or even resulted in violence-in the case of the Preah Vihear temple on the Thai-Cambodia border, considerable violence-in defiance of ASEAN's professed norms. In these cases, outside actors, notably the International Court of Justice, were far more instrumental in facilitating resolutions than ASEAN. These observations are particularly relevant given ASEAN's repeated claims of having prevented violent conflict between its members. This is, at best, an overstatement. In some cases, the existence of ASEAN has facilitated relationships that proved valuable in resolving the situation, such as Indonesia's decision to inject itself into the Preah Vihear temple dispute or in helping to mitigate intra-ASEAN divisions after the 2012 ASEAN Ministerial Meeting which failed to produce a consensus over the South China Sea. However, the organization itself was usually a bystander. Of course, to advocates of ASEAN, it is precisely the creation of a general environment that is conducive to such political interactions that makes ASEAN valuable. The possibility that ASEAN embodies a kind of multilateralism

It is common in academic and policymaking circles to argue or assume that democracy should be correlated with positive outcomes, such as peace, development, rule of law, and equality, while authoritarianism should be associated with all their negative opposites. But no serious observer of Asian politics—whether East, Southeast, South, or Central—would ever propose such a blunt causal connection, especially with regard to the outcomes that occupy our attention in this volume: peace and violence. Examples abound in Asia of countries where democratization has appeared to be associated with an increase in violence, as well as dictatorships that have at least seemed adept at fulfilling basic human desires for physical security, if not individual and collective freedoms. Trumpeted as they always are by autocrats and their most vocal champions, such examples give rise to the opposite conclusion: authoritarianism generally fosters peace, while democracy—especially the rocky process of democratization itself—tends to increase violence, at least until democracy ages, consolidates, and matures. The fact that both of these opposing perspectives can plausibly coexist suggests that no definitive, absolute correlation between regime type and violence actually exists. Nevertheless, one can still discern some striking patterns linking regimes and violence across Asia. First, as a matter of regime type, democracies and dictatorships can both be either peaceful or violent, but for different reasons. Most simply put, authoritarian peace rests on capable states, while democratic peace rests on durable settlements. The greatest dangers therefore lie where state incapacity is married to authoritarianism—as in the Philippines under the Ferdinand Marcos regime and potentially again under Rodrigo Duterte—and where political settlements break down in a democracy, whether a democracy as old as India or as young as Timor-Leste. Second, regime transitions can create a range of outcomes with regards to large-scale violence. As predicted in the literature, political liberalization in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Nepal has been accompanied by the escalation of large-scale violence. However, the roots of these conflicts and the initial formation of the rebel organizations at the center of contemporary violence can be traced back to authoritarian rule that preceded democratic change. Furthermore, Asian countries show that transitions to democracy provide exceptional

International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 2011

East Asia has experienced a drastic decline in incidences of warfare and has had exceptionally low levels of battle deaths after 1979. However, East Asian peace had already begun in 1967 inside ASEAN. Is it possible that East Asian peace began in ASEAN and spread to the rest of East Asia? This is the question that this article aims to tackle by showing the association between a reasonable and plausible explanation, the ASEAN Way, and East Asian peace after 1979. The argument about the role of the ASEAN approach in the pacification of East Asia is based on an examination of the patterns of frequency of conflicts, numbers of battle deaths and conflict termination. In this kind of examination, it seems that the recipes for peace in East Asia after 1979 are similar to those of ASEAN after 1967, and that their relationship to conflicts was also very similar.

2009

Third World Quarterly, 2004

The 1997 Asian economic crisis discredited the international discussion about 'Asian values' in Pacific Asia, replacing it with a globalised 'good governance' discourse. The financial breakdown undermined claims by Asian autocrats that government should be based on authoritarian 'Asian values', not 'Western democracy'. Yet, seven years later, authoritarian regimes in the region are flourishing while the new democracies flounder. Why have dictatorships, not democracies, prospered politically since the Asian financial crisis? Pacific Asia began as an 'imagined community' of developmental dictatorships, making authoritarian development the 'original position' against which democratic governance is judged. While the demise of 'Asian values' contributed to the fall of the Suharto regime in Indonesia, it did less harm to authoritarian regimes in more economically developed Malaysia and Singapore. The US-led anti-terror coalition provided several authoritarian rulers in Pacific Asia with welcome support from the West, while allowing them to weaken internal opposition. The new democracies, by contrast, faced international pressures to combat terrorism, often arousing local protest. Finally, middle class-based reformist movements have risked destabilising the region's new democracies in the name of good governance. The 1997 Asian economic crisis discredited the international discussion about whether authoritarian 'Asian values' in Pacific Asia (East and Southeast Asia) explained the region's economic 'miracle'.' Tommy Koh, a senior Singaporean government official and long-time advocate of 'Asian values', was reduced to pleading that they were not to blame for the recent economic downturn.2 A globalised 'good governance' discourse forced developmental dictatorships in the region further onto the defensive. International financial institutions argued that corruption and cronyism had made these non-democratic regimes vulnerable to financial breakdown.3 The volte-face of the IMF and World Bank about the now wayward 'Asian way' was particularly striking. Having once endorsed the 'East Asian miracle', it now propagated reforms in governance which, in the largely authoritarian Pacific Asian context, were a thinly veiled critique of the region's autocrats.4

East Asia, 2008

Legitimacy is a key term in political science. It is also a messy one. It can be applied to whole regimes, particular administrations, individual rulers and specific policies. This makes it difficult to specify, and even more difficult to quantify. It always involves a relationship between those in power and those out of power. Whilst those in power will claim legitimacy for what they do, it is always subject to check based upon the perceptions of those out of power. It is as fluid and manipulable as the 'mandate of heaven' of imperial China. Rulers never enjoy complete and universal legitimacy. When regimes collapse, we knowafter the event at any ratethat they enjoyed insufficient legitimacy. However charting, let alone measuring, changes to legitimacy in the absence of regime collapse is extremely precarious. This collection of essays, largely by up-and-coming academics with an American connection, attempts to illustrate the issues and take forward the discussion of some of the problematic dimensions. The introduction by White identifies six main characteristics. Legitimacy is a) always partial rather than total; b) specifically and demonstrably related to political processes rather than to vague socioeconomic categories; c) can be analysed as both a causal factor and as an outcome of political actions, but in both cases it is constructed by the activity of agents who aim to achieve gains or avoid losses; d) can be applied to a wide range of political phenomena and actors, not necessarily just to national governments; e) can be challenged by patriotisms and is not always supported by them; f) has both universal as well as contextual features. Given all these general points, the feature that gives greatest coherence to these articles is their geographical focus. They all focus on individual states in east and southeast Asia. Three deal with China. Seo is concerned with the relationship between nationalism and political legitimacy. He looks at the disputes over He Shang (River

Asian Politics & Policy, 2016

2013

Acharya has presented an excellent and compelling historical overview of regional relations and regionalism in Southeast Asia. One of Acharya's stated objectives in writing the book is to address a lack of historical analysis among political scientists when it comes to examining Southeast Asia. Political scientists tend to begin examining regionalism in Southeast Asia in the aftermath of World War II, when the region was under the influence of the Allied South East Asian Command. As Acharya strongly demonstrates, however, Southeast Asia has had a history as a region _ and, perhaps, a regional identity _ that stretches back for centuries. This is an important book, which makes a valuable contribution towards the study of Southeast Asian regionalism by opening new areas for discussion and debate about this concept. The book is divided into seven sections, including the introduction and conclusion. The introduction argues for the importance of understanding Southeast Asia as a "region" and offers an overview of previous attempts to do so. It presents the basic argument of the book: "regions are socially constructed, rather than geographically or ethnosocially preordained … (r)egions, like nation-states, are imagined communities." 1 The international relations of Southeast Asia have been significantly influenced by the quest for regional identity. Chapter One looks at pre-colonial Southeast Asia and establishes that extensive regional interactions were commonplace during this period. These interactions may have formed the basis of a regional identity. This is the most novel part of the book. Acharya examines O.W. Wolter's concept of the mandala state. Wolter characterized Southeast Asian relations during parts of the precolonial period as based around a central ruler whose authority extended outwards in the form of concentric circles. Outlying kingdoms enjoyed considerable independence but also recognized an allegiance to the centre. Within the mandala, the concept of statehood was not defined by territory but by social obligations and loyalties. Arguably, these patterns of interaction gave rise to a form of regional identity. This loosely-structured set of relations may be indicative of contemporary Southeast Asian relations. Chapter One also establishes the importance of intra-regional trade to precolonial Southeast Asia. Chapter Two enters more familiar territory by exploring the role of nationalism in the post-World War Two/Cold War Southeast Asia. Regionalism was promoted for narrow, nationalist reasons. External threats eventually provided an impetus for the development of a more vibrant, self-reliant regionalism. Chapter Three provides an excellent assessment of the emergence of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Chapter Four examines the political crises surrounding ASEAN and its management of