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In the aftermath of WWII, and once again at the end of the Cold War, Europeans created order and thereby enhanced their stability. As the following discussion will make clear, they did so by transcending historical legacies, including former enemies into security structures, tying the US to the European continent and thus, over time, promoting principles, norms and rules that built trust and redefined identities. Or, put differently, Europeans promoted peace and stability by giving rise to what Webber et. al. (2004) and Kirchner (2006) characterize as "security governance." Security provisions in the Asia-Pacific region look very different. History there is still a "neuralgic point" (Berger 2006) and a "hub and spokes network" consisting of five bilateral alliances, along with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (a "security regime" which is gradually moving toward a "security community") and the ASEAN Regional Forum were created over time to stabilize the region. Recognizing that Asia is not Europe, the paper argues that the process of European security provisions, nevertheless, provides useful lessons for the Asia-Pacific region, particularly when it comes to the institutionalization of trust on multiple levels--a development that appears inevitable to assure regional stability in the long-run. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why was not Asia “ripe for rivalry” as many scholars and pundits predicted soon after the Cold War? Why did the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) states engage in multilateral institutions, such as ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and ASEAN Plus Three (APT), to manage regional security in the post Cold War era? This paper intends to address the second question by shedding some light on the first question. Built on the balance of power theory and neoliberal “interdependence” wisdom, this study introduces a new realism-based institutional theory—institutional realism. It argues that (1) institutional balancing, i.e. to countervail pressures or threats through initiating, utilizing, and dominating multilateral institutions, is a new realist strategy for states to pursue security under anarchy; and (2) the interplay between the distribution of capabilities and economic interdependence shapes states’ decisions on when and how to employ this strategy. The proliferation of multilateral institutions is a policy outcome of ASEAN’s institutional balancing strategy for seeking security after the Cold War. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

TOWARDS A COOPERATIVE SECURITY ORDER IN ASIAThe future security of Asia cannot be considered in isolation and has to be considered within the ambit of the larger issue of global security due to the many complex linkages that have emerged since the end ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]