1. Mimetic Adoption and Norm Diffusion: "European" Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia?
- Author
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Katsumata, Hiro
- Subjects
- *
CONFLICT management , *SOCIOLOGY , *DIPLOMACY , *NATIONAL security - Abstract
The members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are pursuing a set of cooperative security agendas similar to those implemented by the participant states of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), namely, confidence-building measures (CBMs), preventive diplomacy (PD), conflict resolution and a set of agendas associated with security communities. This 'Europeanization' of ASEAN's cooperative security can be captured by a perspective founded on sociological institutionalism, the main focus of which is the issue of institutional isomorphism. The pursuit of new cooperative security agendas on the part of the ASEAN members should be seen as a set of instances of their mimetic adoption of external norms for the sake of legitimacy. They have mimetically adopted a set of norms associated with the collective management of conflicts, which have been practiced by the OSCE/CSCE participant states. They have done so, with the intention of securing their identities as legitimate members of the community of modern states, and of enhancing the status of ASEAN and ARF as legitimate cooperative security institutions. This finding gives support to the claim that mimetic adoption for the sake of legitimacy is one of the pathways for norm diffusion. Such a claim leads to policy advice. To facilitate the spread of their conflict-management norms, the European policymakers may work toward the strengthening of the social environment which defines the OSCE as a legitimate cooperative security institution. However, the long-term sustainability of their effort to facilitate the spread of their norms is questionable because 'the West' is in general losing its moral appeal today in the global society. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2007