The mechanisms of politico-security regionalism in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa : a comparative case study of ASEAN and SADC

Abstract

The central question addressed by this thesis is whether and to what extent ASEAN and SADC provide a regional response to security challenges from within and without the region respectively. In the examination of a regional response to security challenges in Southeast Asia and Southern Africa, this study investigates each regional organisation’s efforts and methods of how to approach and deal with regional security problems. In examining the processes and patterns of ASEAN and SADC regionalism in terms of the security dimension, the focus is on political security in its regional context. In doing so, the mechanisms of both ASEAN and SADC politico-security regionalisms are explored. This study also aims to compare SADC and ASEAN to find similarities and differences in terms of the way in which ‘politico-security regionalism’ as a regional project is used to respond to global challenges, as well as to internal needs. Moreover, this study seeks to explore what can be learnt from the experiences of both ASEAN and SADC with regard to regionalism and regionalisation in response to political security threats. This will, as a result, be conducive to understanding the character, nature and type of contemporary regionalism and regional security in the South, including Southeast Asia and Southern Africa. Furthermore, in discussing the question of whether and how ASEAN and SADC attempt to shape and modify or change the process of globalisation and regionalisation in politico-security terms, this study emphasises a multi-dimensionality of contemporary regionalism – so called ‘new regionalism’ – which would normally be based on constructivism. Therefore, this study argues that the theoretical problem relates to the insufficiency of neo-realist and neo-liberal institutionalist accounts that call for a much needed attempt to bring ASEAN and SADC into contemporary discussions about the mechanisms of politico-security regionalisms within the context of a (social) constructivism of international relations (IR) theory.