Understanding ASEAN as a Relational Community: A Study Focused on Political-security Aspects

Abstract

It is difficult to assess ASEAN’s achievement as the most successful intergovernmental organisation today in the developing world, simply based on the standards of traditional regionalism. Drawing upon relational theory of world politics, this article builds a conceptual framework of “relational community” upon the construct of relationality and argues that ASEAN is a relational community directed essentially to managing relations among the member states. The “relational community” offers a new way of thinking for the building of the future East Asian community.