6 - Creating a Regional Identity

Summary

In its preamble, the ASEAN Charter declared the commitment of the peoples of Southeast Asia to intensify:

community building through enhanced regional cooperation and integration, in particular by establishing an ASEAN Community which is comprised of the ASEAN Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

In 2009, in its summit in Cha-am, ASEAN adopted a roadmap for an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC). ASEAN's 2010 theme was:

Towards an ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action, which includes steps to accelerate implementation of three blueprints, enforcement of the charter by developing a legal framework and fostering ties with countries and groups outside the bloc.

Despite its success in political security and economic community building, ASEAN has yet to gain traction in sociocultural community building efforts — the crucial third leg of the ASEAN community. It has been observed that:

While communities of practice have been built by bringing together experts and practitioners in the many areas of ASEAN cooperation, this has not yet been translated or expanded to generating a sense of community among the citizens of ASEAN member states.

A recent meeting of ASEAN observers identified the following challenges in designing the ASEAN Socio-Community Blueprint:

1. • Unlike the AEC, the ASCC lacks concrete drivers, as the stakeholder are far more diverse and complex;

2. • While the AEC Blueprint has specific targets and timelines, it will be difficult for the ASCC Blueprint to follow the same format. As many of ASCC goals are driven by national agendas, implementation of initiatives has to be done both at national and regional levels and hence may require two types of score cards;

3. • ASEAN member countries may not have a common understanding of social issues, such as values, ethics, and social justice. Furthermore, unlike the European Union, ASEAN does not have the institutional capacity to translate these social issues into legislation;[…]