Books by Alice Ba
This thoroughly updated new edition of an already popular text brings together specially-commissi... more This thoroughly updated new edition of an already popular text brings together specially-commissioned chapters by leading authorities, rigorously edited to ensure systematic coverage. It provides students with an accessible and up-to-date thematically-structured comparative introduction to Southeast Asia today.
“This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian... more “This book seeks to explain two core paradoxes associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): How have diverse states hung together and stabilized relations in the face of competing interests, divergent preferences, and arguably weak cooperation? How has a group of lesser, self-identified Southeast Asian powers gone beyond its original regional purview to shape the form and content of Asian Pacific and East Asian regionalisms? According to Alice Ba, the answers lie in ASEAN's founding arguments: arguments that were premised on an assumed regional disunity. She demonstrates how these arguments draw critical causal connections that make Southeast Asian regionalism a necessary response to problems, give rise to its defining informality and consensus-seeking process, and also constrain ASEAN's regionalism. Tracing debates about ASEAN's intra- and extra-regional relations over four decades, she argues for a process-driven view of cooperation, sheds light on intervening processes of argument and debate, and highlights interacting material, ideational, and social forces in the construction of regions and regionalisms.”
Contending Perspectives on Global Governance: Coherence, Contestation, and World Order
Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation
Articles and Chapters by Alice Ba
International Affairs , 2023
International organizations (IOs) confront complex legitimation challenges with the diversificati... more International organizations (IOs) confront complex legitimation challenges with the diversification of audiences and actors asserting judgment and input. Drawing on Lenz and Söderbaum's agents-audience-environment (AAE) conceptualization of legitimation strategies, this discussion advances understandings of how diversification affects IO legitimation and legitimation strategies. Particular attention is given to their special sensitivity to internal IO diversification processes whose constitutive changes affect both the agent and audience ends of strategy. It especially highlights three commonly found sources of internal IO diversification: domestic change, new membership and new purposes. Providing illustration is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its 30+ year-long efforts to defend and legitimate the organization's choices vis-à-vis its most internationally criticized member, Myanmar, and to manage the delegitimating effects of association. The discussion highlights three periods of contrasting internal diversification and effects on ASEAN's legitimation strategies: the first characterized by the least diversification and defiant affirmation of internal founding norms; the second by membership-, purpose- and audience-diversification, and strategies of reconciliation; and the third by diversification's accentuation of member-states' dual roles as agents and audiences of legitimation with growing reliance on informal workarounds, strategic ambiguation and defensive depoliticization as especially illustrated by ASEAN's responses to Myanmar's 2021 coup.
The Elgar Companion to ASEAN , 2023
Since ASEAN’s creation in 1967, ASEAN has been a constant but variable presence across six distin... more Since ASEAN’s creation in 1967, ASEAN has been a constant but variable presence across six distinct periods of Southeast Asia-China relations during which both states and relations have experienced dramatic changes. This chapter highlights three contrasting and interacting institutional logics - geopolitical/strategic, regional order construction/maintenance, and demand-driven - that states have associated with ASEAN; however, which logic is most prominent has shifted with critical changes at domestic, regional, and global levels. This paper gives special attention to the sensitivity of Southeast Asia-China relations to US-associated changes, including the changing state of US-China relations, and how such changes differently structure and inform Southeast Asian states’ and China’s approaches to ASEAN. The trajectory of past relations suggests that ASEAN offers both Southeast Asian states and China mechanisms by which to navigate what may be the most challenging period of relations ahead given the deteriorating state of US-China relations, but that the success of such efforts depends on their respective domestic capacities to appreciate the vulnerabilities of their relations.
Routledge Handbook of US Foreign Policy in the Indo-Pacific, 2023
This chapter offers an overview of US policies and approaches toward the Association of Southeast... more This chapter offers an overview of US policies and approaches toward the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an extension of US Southeast Asia policy across five post-Cold War administrations. It highlights important evolution correspondent to important changes in Asia’s institutional and geopolitical context, with the Obama administration representing the apex of US engagement and the Trump administration representing its most volatile point. Most of all, it gives attention to structural and systemic influences that provide core continuities, as well as defining tensions, in US ASEAN policy across administrations despite their differences. It highlights two tensions, in particular, that have shaped and complicated US approaches to ASEAN in Southeast Asia – namely, the tension between bilateral and regional approaches and the concerns of the United States as a global great power and those of local Southeast Asian powers and how these tensions, in turn, have conditioned US priorities and preferences. The chapter concludes by summarizing common principles and practices found across administrations in their approaches to ASEAN and Southeast Asia.
The Pacific Review, 2020
How best to assess ASEAN as a collective enterprise are longstanding. Producing often polar asses... more How best to assess ASEAN as a collective enterprise are longstanding. Producing often polar assessments of the organization and its activities, the question has been a recurrent one in the scholarship on ASEAN and any retrospective on the organization. Stubbs' (2019) article does not resolve the question, but it does offer ways to make sense of the debate. It also identifies ways forward with its identification of analytic criteria by which ASEAN's performance as an international organization has been assessed. How well his two-camp categorization of the literature captures the state of play, however, can be debated. It is also not without potential costs.
Asian Perspective, 2019
China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is viewed by most as symbolic of a new era of Chinese init... more China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is viewed by most as symbolic of a new era of Chinese initiative and ambition. But while much attention has focused on how the BRI fits into China's-and specifically Xi Jinping's-grand narrative of national rejuvenation, less has been said about regional narratives-that is, the narratives of China's target audiences. Toward addressing this oversight, I consider the case of Singapore in relation to BRI. Specifically, I give attention to strategic narratives that offer analytic windows into the complex relationships being negotiated between China and Southeast Asian states. Strategic narratives, as instruments of policy, also play roles in constructing the strategic space in which BRI enters, with implications for the opportunities and constraints faced by China in Southeast Asia. China's Belt and Road initiative (BRi) is viewed By most as symBoliC of a new era of Chinese initiative and ambition. Much of the attention has focused on how BRI fits into China's grand narrative of national rejuvenation, or what Xi Jinping refers to as the "great national rejuve-nation of China's dream." Those working in the field of international relations have typically emphasized how this aspirational narrative serves a larger grand strategy-that is, China's interest in expanded geopo-litical influence, security, and recognition, especially vis-à-vis Western powers. 1 Callahan (2016) may offer the representative assessment. As he puts it, "The goal is to weave neighboring countries into a Sino-centric network of economic, political, cultural, and security relations. Beijing's grand strategy thus is to reconstitute the regional order-and eventually global order-with new governance ideas, norms, and rules." "New projects" like BRI, along with "new institutions" like the Asian
International Politics , 2020
This article traces East Asia's evolving multilateralisms and role in transitioning East Asia awa... more This article traces East Asia's evolving multilateralisms and role in transitioning East Asia away from "US hub-and-spokes" bilateralism toward a more networked system of security arrangements. Drawing on the English School, it argues for revisiting multilateralism's diplomatic foundations as a way to direct attention to (1) the practice's region-specific content and (2) the ways that multilateralism has introduced system-transitioning changes that include system-level dynamics associated with membership, actor hood, and the types of security at stake. The result is a more complex security environment and normative context that calls for more multifaceted responses from all, including the United States and China whose current multilateral diplomacies both draw from and challenge the multilateral norms and practices that have been created. Theoretically, re-attention to multilateralism's diplomatic foundations also offers the English School an opportunity to make more distinctive contributions to ongoing debates about East Asia's networking processes and security arrangements.
Institutionalizing East Asia: Mapping and Reconfiguring Regional Cooperation (eds., Alice D. Ba, Cheng-Chwee Kuik, and Sueo Sudo), Routledge, 2016
How best to conceptualize institutionalization has been central to explanations and assessments o... more How best to conceptualize institutionalization has been central to explanations and assessments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its mechanisms of regional cooperation. Yet, the process of institutionalization is itself too often undertheorized in ways that limit our ability to see what in fact is being institutionalized. The chapter proceeds in three parts. First, in contrast to those who define institutionalization in terms of contractual, legal cooperation, this chapter argues that institutionalization is better treated as the process of regularization – in other words, the regularization of practices and modes of cooperative activity. Such a definition, for example, expands conventional views of “strong institutionalization” beyond the formal-legal cooperation typically assumed; it also allows for consideration of how local variations in purpose might affect the kinds of regional cooperation institutionalized (i.e., institutional form). Second, the chapter elaborates on ASEAN norms, practices, and decision-making – that is, what is being institutionalized. Third and finally, the chapter elaborates on the institutionalization of “ASEAN centrality,” a term that refers to ASEAN’s institutional prominence and influence in larger frameworks, inclusive of Northeast Asian and Asian Pacific powers. This third section also considers the ways in which the centrality of ASEAN is both regularized and challenged in East Asian and Asian Pacific institutional settings.
Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2018
Despite long-standing sovereignty sensitivities, the Malacca and Singapore Straits have been the ... more Despite long-standing sovereignty sensitivities, the Malacca and Singapore Straits have been the site of co-operative governance and regime building. Of note is the 2007 Co-operative Mechanism of the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, characterised as a milestone achievement in regional co-operation towards improved safety and security in the Straits. Yet, well before the Co-operative Mechanism were also earlier instances of co-operation dating to the 1970s – specifically between the Straits’ littoral states under a tripartite framework and Japanese actors through the Malacca Strait Council. In addition to providing a template for the Co-operative Mechanism, these arrangements offer alternative models of governance and regime building that challenge conventional characterisations of “regional governance” – what it looks like, as well as its driving actors. This article considers the significance of these early efforts, with attention to the ways that the region’s developmental context bears on the actors, structures and processes of governance in Southeast Asia. Not only does this historical process of co-operation give expression to alternative governing arrangements composed of mixed actors and obligations, but an unconventional governance agent – the Nippon Foundation – has played an especially defining role in bringing actors to the table and substantiating the co-operative process.
Institutional Evolution in the Asia Pacific: Security-Economic Nexus (eds., Steven B. Rothman, Utpal Vyas, Yoichiro Sato) , 2017
The South China Sea Dispute: Navigating Diplomatic and Strategic Tensions (eds., Ian J. Storey and Cheng-Yi Lin), 2016
The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia, 2014
Contesting International Society in East Asia , 2014
Changing security dynamics in East Asia: A post-US regional order in the making? (Edited by Elena Atanassova-Cornelis and Frans-Paul van der Putten), 2014
This chapter focuses East Asia’s evolving mix of regional institutions as an important response t... more This chapter focuses East Asia’s evolving mix of regional institutions as an important response to recurrent uncertainties about US commitments. Specifically, it considers “regional community” as an analytical lens, normative ideal, and policy objective that has informed the emergence and development of regional institutions in East Asia. While theoretically and practically contested, such community regional conceptualizations have also intervened to broaden East Asian conceptualizations of regional order beyond the US-centric conceptualizations of the past. In this sense, the real significance of community conceptualizations – even if contested – lies in their projection of regional order that is more China-inclusive, that gives a greater standing to smaller and middle powers, and that equates “security” with more than “stability” compared to the US system of alliances and relations that defined East Asia’s Cold War system. The result is a system of mixed community and deterrence security logics. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the US “rebalance to Asia” under the Obama presidency as indicative of East Asia’s different logics – logics that compete but also now condition the other.
Political Science, 2014
In East Asia, China’s growing economic weight and economic initiative, along with the correspondi... more In East Asia, China’s growing economic weight and economic initiative, along with the corresponding intensification of intra-East Asian economic ties, has renewed debates about the roles played by major power leadership in regional integration. Focusing on China’s particular relations with Southeast Asian states, this article investigates the extent to which China can be said to be substantiating or redirecting existing patterns of East Asian integration. It does so by considering some basic markers of Chinese influence in trade, investment, and aid, as well as the domestic-political and regional-political dimensions of leadership that can complicate the ability of otherwise materially able powers to lead. While recent economic initiatives like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank suggest that China is turning to a more proactive approach to East Asian integration, this article also highlights how any prospective leading Chinese role seems likely to be conditioned by a system of expectations and interests constituted by Southeast Asian states and their historical relations with the United States and Japan.
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2014
This article gives attention to the geopolitics associated with the Association of Southeast Asia... more This article gives attention to the geopolitics associated with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an alternative model of regionalism in theory and practice. Offering a rough periodization of ASEAN in IR theory, it considers interacting theoretical and empirical developments, and their geopolitics as one way to think about first, ASEAN, its defining dynamics and processes of change, and second, ASEAN’s relationship to a larger IR theoretic literature defined by US preoccupations and the institutional trajectory of the EU. Three periods are considered: a Cold War period when ASEAN norms and practices developed relatively insulated from great power expectations and theorizing about ASEAN minimal; the 1990s when constructivist theorizing encouraged new thinking about alternative institutional models; and the 2000s, a period characterized by correlating great power pressures and a ‘functional’ turn in academic and theoretical debates about ASEAN. Special attention is given to the United States as a major, leading actor in both world politics and the institutionalization of international relations as a discipline, as well as the possibilities and constraints of institutional divergence in theory and practice.
Legitimating International Organizations (Oxford University Press), 2013
This chapter investigates questions of organizational legitimacy in relation to the Association o... more This chapter investigates questions of organizational legitimacy in relation to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It seeks to add to ongoing discussions on international organizations and legitimacy in at least two ways. First, its discussion of a regional case study contributes to efforts to expand our sights beyond the Global North and the organizations that are typically the focus of such discussions. This is not to say that regional organizations in the Global South have received no attention but to the extent that they do, the focus is often on how they add to or detract from the legitimacy of existing global organizations rather than the dynamics of regional legitimacy itself. The ASEAN case is used here to illustrate some of the ways that legitimacy challenges may play out differently in non-core regional organizations. Second, discussions have generally focused on legitimacy vis-à-vis an organization’s constituent members – that is, how and why members accept the authority and legitimacy of the organizations of which they are a part. In contrast, this chapter highlights how organizations can also face significant external pressures that come from non-member expectations about what constitutes an organization’s legitimacy and how that challenge is often greater for non-European, non-North American organizations like ASEAN for reasons that are structural and material, as well as cultural and historical. In the ASEAN case, the challenge of external legitimacy has moreover become more pronounced since the early 1990s due to three key developments: first, the intensified liberalization of world order since the ending of the Cold War; second, the expanded geographic scope of ASEAN’s regionalism(s); and third, the 1997-8 Asian financial crisis. Lastly, in highlighting how such external expectations can interact with internal legitimacy claims in ways that can both add to, and detract from, an organization’s overall legitimacy, it draws parallels to developments in state sovereignty where external recognition of a state’s legitimacy has been made increasingly contingent on the domestic fulfillment of certain (liberal) standards and norms.
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Books by Alice Ba
Articles and Chapters by Alice Ba