Revision summary
ASEAN’s success is peace, process, and diplomatic centrality. The ASEAN Way traded speed for inclusion. AFTA and related economic projects thickened interdependence. SAARC is the usual foil: ASEAN had no permanent intra-club freeze of that kind. South China Sea and Myanmar show the ceiling of consensus.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, founded in 1967, is the most successful regional club in the developing world. Success is peace among members, centrality in Asian diplomacy, and thick economic habits. It is not a European Union.
Body
What success looks like
- No interstate war among members after the expansion of the club, despite earlier Konfrontasi-type memories.
- The ASEAN Way: consultation, non-interference, and consensus lowered the cost of sitting together.
- Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, ASEAN Regional Forum, and later the East Asia Summit placed ASEAN in the chair of wider tables.
- AFTA and the ASEAN Economic Community built a production and tariff habit even if the single market is incomplete.
Why it worked better than many Souths
- Anti-communist founding core, later inclusion of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia, turned a sub-region into a diplomatic unit.
- External powers were invited in as partners, not as members that could capture the secretariat.
- Compared with SAARC, there was no enduring dyadic veto equal to India–Pakistan inside the room.
Limits of the success story
- Myanmar, the South China Sea, and great-power split show the ASEAN Way stalling on hard security.
- Consensus can mean lowest-common-denominator statements.
- Inequality among members and weak enforcement are the price of keeping all flags in.
Measure against the mandate
- Success is regional peace and agenda-setting centrality, not a security community in Karl Deutsch’s full sense.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[ASEAN 1967] --> W[ASEAN Way consensus] W --> P[Peace among members] W --> C[Centrality ARF EAS] W --> E[AFTA economic habit] X[SCS Myanmar] -.limits.-> C
Conclusion
ASEAN succeeded as a diplomatic and economic process that kept diverse States talking and trading. The ASEAN Way and centrality are the achievements. Hard security and China policy remain the unfinished tests. Against SAARC, the success is clear.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Write about the growing significance of QUAD.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q5(d)). View answer →
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Is ASEAN a security community?
It is a security regime of habits and talk. It is not NATO and not a fully merged demos.
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Why compare with SAARC?
Both are post-colonial regionalisms. ASEAN delivered process and trade density that SAARC did not.
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