ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia

The member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are famed for clinging to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and resisting the shift to 'post-Westphalian' sovereignty, much to the derision of many critics. Yet the historical record shows that Southeast Asian states have also been involved in subversion, invasion, annexation, proxy warfare, peacekeeping, state-building and humanitarian interventions. How do we make sense of this apparent contradiction, and what is the real state of sovereignty in Southeast Asia today? Critiquing mainstream constructivist and realist accounts, this book offers a fresh, revisionist history of ASEAN. Drawing on political economy, political geography and state theory, it offers a new approach to theorizing sovereignty and intervention as technologies of power. Focusing on ASEAN states' interventions in Burma, Cambodia and East Timor, it argues that the selective application of sovereignty norms reflects power struggles within Southeast Asian societies.