An Idea-focused Explanation for the Establishment of the ARF

Abstract

In an attempt to improve on the conventional explanation in the previous chapter, the present chapter focuses on the role of ideational factors in the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on the part of the ASEAN countries. The study traces the process of the development of security cooperation — the process by which these countries developed cooperative security agendas and established the ARF, covering the period from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. To be specific, it identifies the ideas which the Southeast Asians had held, and focuses on the ways in which they had practised these ideas. In a process-oriented study, the agency of actors should be taken into consideration. Thus, the study is premised on the view that actors are not passive entities to be unilaterally influenced by ideational structures. They have the ability to actively put forward their own agendas, and to foster a set of ideas shared by the members of the community to which they belong.¹