Challenging ASEAN: A "Topological" View

The 40th anniversary of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an opportunity to consider the ways in which the Association is a challenge to its analysts and is itself challenged by issues and circumstances. Among the analytic challenges is the necessity but also the difficulty of distinguishing Southeast Asia the region from ASEAN the organization. The more ASEAN claims and tries to transform Southeast Asia into a community, and the more the Association is challenged by questions of democracy, the more useful this analytic distinction becomes. Conflating the region and the organization precludes asking two very different questions about democracy: On the one hand, can and should ASEAN try to make the region more democratic? On the other, can and should ASEAN itself become more democratic? The first task is daunting in a region where only one country — Indonesia — is rated "free" by Freedom House. But the "non-interference" principle, on closer inspection, does not preclude adding democracy to ASEAN's agenda. The second task will depend in part on the content of ASEAN's new charter and how much its provisions will matter. How, in particular, will the Association as a consociational body practicing "horizontal" or inter-elite democracy respond to the presently steep inequality between its member governments and its Secretariat? In this "topological" picture, ASEAN's member states are mountains of unequal height surrounding the Secretariat as a basin. Could elevating the basin — empowering the Secretary-General — help ASEAN retain credibility as an organization with a more than contingent interest in democracy and human rights? Evidence from the 2007 crisis in Myanmar, the Association's delayed response to that crisis, and the background of the incoming Secretary-General suggest that the answer is yes.