Security Culture in Southeast Asia: How ASEAN and the ARF Deal with Transnational Challenges.

This paper examines the evolving regional security culture in Southeast Asia and examines how beliefs about security as shared by regional governments have impacted on the ways in which both ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) have responded to transnational security challenges. The paper is divided into three sections. It first outlines the substance of the shared security culture in the ASEAN region, highlighting its central tenets and operational assumptions. The paper, secondly, shows how the convergence of security cultures in Southeast Asia has influenced the development of ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum and their respective roles as providers of security. Thirdly, it analyses how these two regional arrangements have in recent years responded to key transnational challenges affecting Southeast Asia. The focus here is on domestic legitimacy crises with cross-border implications, terrorism and maritime threats. The paper argues that consistent with its broadly shared, albeit evolving security culture ASEAN countries have been reluctant to allow the grouping to embrace practical measures to address human security issues, while developments threatening their state security have prompted them to develop responses to meet the challenges of terrorism and maritime threats. Notably, in addressing these respective challenges both ASEAN and the ARF remain guided by long-term ideas and expectations about how state and regional security are best maintained. The paper also demonstrates that Southeast Asia?s regional security culture has not prevented sub-regional efforts to forge operational moves designed to address transnational terrorism and maritime security challenges. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]