Who governs and how? Non-state actors and transnational governance in Southeast Asia

This special issue focuses on transnational governance, essentially cross-border networked forms of co-ordination in which non-state, or private, actors play important or leading roles in providing standards, rules and practices that other actors voluntarily abide by. While not denying the pre-eminent role of the state in governance, we nonetheless believe there is an under-estimation of transnational governance in Southeast Asia and the varied governance role played by non-state actors that go beyond that of simply acting as pressure or advisory groups lobbying or advising states and regional organisations. We provide five different case studies that explore in detail the varied governance roles played by non-state actors using the common analytical framework set out in this introduction. The case studies reveal interesting variations in the architecture of transnational governance, why they emerge, the modes of social co-ordination through which they work to shape actor behaviour and achieve impact, their normative implications, and how these governance schemes intersect with the state and national regulatory frameworks. This special issue, thus, highlights the variegated architecture of governance in this region in which non-state actors play substantial governance roles regulating the conduct of other actors

Bandung And The Political Economy of North-South Relations: Sowing The Seeds For Revisioning International Society

This paper revisits the 1955 Bandung Conference in an effort to identify and evaluate the legacy of Bandung for the international political economy. James Mayall interpreted the Bandung movement as a revisionist alliance that sought to restructure international society, most notably through the principle of non-alignment. This paper argues that the 1955 Bandung Conference sowed the seeds for revisioning international society in two further ways. Bandung’s call for equitable representation in international decision-making for newly independent states was essentially a call to take seriously international justice principles, particularly that of procedural justice, in the management of world affairs. Bandung participants also articulated an alternative set of principles for inter-state engagement that emphasised dialogue and accommodation, collective problem-solving and the search for consensus or compromise, principles that were regarded as more suited to the increasingly plural international society of states following decolonisation, and a necessary alternative to the power politics and coercion that had been the basis of colonialism and that threatened to dominate international relations in a world of superpower bloc politics. Fifty years on, these principles remain salient. Procedural justice remains curtailed for developing states, particularly in the key institutions of global economic governance, while the emergence of a range of justice claims articulated by a wider cast of actors beyond states has not led to the emergence of a genuine ‘world society’ based on a consensus of values. By drawing on insights from the English School of International Relations and Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative action, the paper suggests that Bandung’s endorsement of dialogue over coercion and confrontation may be the best option to reach a reasoned consensus on values, agendas and in problem-solving. Although existing power disparities will continue to intrude, dialogue processes merit greater attention as a necessary (though not sufficient) step in negotiations. In the end, Bandung’s lasting legacy for a plural world, yet one that is fast integrating, could well be its endorsement of deliberative politics

Labor and Conflict in Southeast Asia

LABOR migration is an important process in Southeast Asia, the second busiest hub of transnational migration in the world after the US–Mexico border. Cross-border labor flows in Southeast Asia have deepened regional interdependence. Migrant workers have contributed to key economic sectors in receiving countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, while labor outmigration has reduced employment pressures and offered remittances to sending countries like the Philippines and Indonesia. But despite its economic value, labor migration in Southeast Asia is controversial. For receiving countries, migrant workers are often considered a security problem threatening both the state and particular societal groups. For sending countries, domestic anger over the often tenuous plight of their nationals abroad can stoke resentment towards the government and society of their hosts. In such situations, although economic interdependence might be expected to make such conflicts easier to address, labor migration can act to inflame bilateral relations. The way in which migrant workers are securitized is vital for explaining the origins of such conflicts. Labor migration has the potential to evoke emotional responses in both their host and home societies, since it raises issues both about who gets what and about how people are treated. Both economic and ideational factors play a key role in mediating how these issues are managed. Over the last decade, two main labor migration conflicts have arisen in Southeast Asia, between Malaysia and the Philippines and Malaysia and Indonesia. Both were catalyzed by security-motivated operations against undocumented migrant workers in Malaysia. However, the two bilateral conflicts followed radically different trajectories – with the role of emotions in the home state, and the discursive construction of the security threat posed by different migrant groups in Malaysia determining how these conflicts evolved

Attempting developmental regionalism through AFTA : the domestic politics - domestic capital nexus

The relationship of regionalism to globalisation is modelled in the literature either as open regionalism aimed at integration with the global market or as a project of resistance to global market forces. Neither of these ideal-type models adequately accounts for an empirical puzzle associated with the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). Althought AFTA is acknowledged as a project of open regionalism aimed at attracting FDI to Southeast Asian region, its member surprisingly chose to accord foreign investors full market access and national treatment privileges at least ten years later than to ASEAN national investors in AFTA's investment liberalisation component programme. How do we explain this seeming contradition? By making a conceptual distinction between foreign-owned and domestic-owned capital, a distinction that is particularly salient in the Southeast Asian context where domestic-owned, often 'emerging' capital performs vital social/politial roles and whose survival is crucial in sustaining elite rule, this paper advances a third model of the globalisation-regionalism relationship. Developmental regionalism, which draws on stategic trade theory from the International Economics discipline, describes and approach to regionalism in which an initial period of partial and temporary resistance to global competition is employed to build up domestic firms able to eventually engage in global competition. In particular, it was to preserve domestic businesses that were closely allied with members of the political/ruling elite that led certain member goverments in ASEAN to advocate a developmental role for AFTA through its investment liberalisation programme, while still using the regional tariff liberalisation component programme as the 'carrot' to attract FDI

Malaysia and the United States : rejecting dominance, embracing engagement

This paper explains Malaysia-US relations in terms of national interests derived from the the nature of the Malaysian political economy and the salience of Islam in Malay(sian) politics as they interact with US foreign policy derived from distinct US grand strategies. The paper compares Malaysia's responses to the US under the Clinton and the first George W Bush Administrations in terms of the following: (a) instances of cooperation and non-cooperation on key US initiatives; (b) pursuit of alternative economic and defence/security relationships; and (c) construction of alternative discourses and coalitions aimed at challenging US initiatives and its hegemony more broadly. Malaysia's responses to the US can be summed up in the phrase, 'rejecting dominance, embracing engagement', evident during both the Clinton and the Bush Administrations and consistent under the Mahathir and the current Abdullah Badawi governments. The Malaysian government's attempts to develop coalitions to challenge US initiatives and its hegemony have not always been successful. The government has, nonetheelss, stood firm and rejected US initiatives and actions that directly threatened national interests. The US, on its part, has accommodated itself to Malaysia's positions on a number of occasions since September 11, reflecting Malaysia's valuable role in Washington's fight against terrorism. Both governments also cooperate extensively in economics, defence and transnational crime from which both parties draw benefits