Crisis and transformation : Asean in the new era

Abstract

This article examines the political consequences of the 1997-1999 Asian crisis for ASEAN's regional cooperation and institutionalization. It relies on a conceptual framework that analyzes the links between political economy and security, tracing regional relations to the makeup and grand strategies of domestic coalitions (internationalizing, hybrid, backlash) forming in response to internationalization. No backlash turn was evident during 1997-1999 in the leading ASEAN states, despite some aggravating effects of both IMF-style reforms and cronyism-related government vacillations, although Indonesia remains in turmoil. on the whole old and new dimensions of their grand strategy, while adapting policies to new socio-economic and political-institutional requirements. Against a shock of major proportions in every realm of life, ASEAN states retained the fundamentally cooperative relations characteristic of the pre-crisis era, even if they navigated through serious challenges in bilateral relations and multilateral collective action on issues of economic cooperation, expansion, intervention, and security. This preliminary assessment notwithstanding, and in light of the greater vulnerability that financial and capital accant liberalization has induced, the full distributional effects of the economic crisis may not be evident for some time. Coalitional forms may be altered an no linear ore irrevocable progression towards internationalization or regional cooperation should be implied.