Abstract
Southeast Asian Association for regional Co-operation was established in 1967 for the region's socio-economic development. Now it has been working as a single economic body and has become the sixth-largest economy in the world and third largest in Asia. It constitutes the third-largest population in the world that is effectively connected through physical and digital means. This study aims to develop a theoretical understanding of the concept of regional Integration and to analyze the trends of regional integration suitable for the South East Asian region specifically. It focuses on the ASEAN's Triple-Cs Principle to deeply analyze its journey of regional economic integration. This Principle, basically, describe the existing strategic patterns of economic integration specifically used in the ASEAN countries to maintain their territorial integrity and increase socio-economic development in the world’s most diverse region. It further shows that how ASEAN remained consistently committed to regional integration since its initiation, for that purpose, how ASEAN worked on the journey of regional connectivity. And, How the advancement in the digital arena, is constantly increasing the regional connectivity (through digital means) and has become a backbone for the process of regional integration in the Asian region. Finally, how regional connectivity brings Peace, Progress, and Prosperity in the South East Asia. Further, it also helps to analyze that how much the existing patterns of Asian regionalism are conducive for socio-economic development. This study is divided into the following sections; the first section briefly describes the central theories of regionalism. In addition, it extensively describes the concept of region, regionalism, and regional integration and the importance of regional integration in the Asian region. The second section of the study explains the details of the Triple-Cs Principle of ASEAN for regional integration. The third section describes how ASEAN followed the Triple-Cs principle during its journey towards regional economic integration in different phases. Finally, it concludes with certain recommendations
Highlights
The concept of regionalism is multidimensional in its very nature
In 1960s, another perception of integration was presented by Stanley Hoffman in which security is defined in the sphere of high politics and economics is in the sphere of low politics, and Stanley Hoffman believed that integration would spread from low politics to high politics and image of the ‘European Community’ began to diverge (Soderbaum, 2011)
The concept of Asian regionalism is dominated with the researches of ASEAN because it considered a successful regional organization outside Europe which maintains its survival for a long time
Summary
The concept of regionalism is multidimensional in its very nature. For instance, some theorists consider that peace and security is the key factor behind regional cooperation/regionalism, while other emphasize on political and economic reasons for regional cooperation. After the World War-II, the significance of Asian regionalism and integration had been realized and since there are three main institutions that promote regional co-operation in South East Asia. These institutions are United Nations; GMS (Greater Mekong Sub-region) a program by ADB and third is ASEAN. Brozel and Risse defined that, regions can be a group of limited number of interlinked states by a geographical relationship and by a degree of mutual interdependence and regionalism refers to the intensifying political and economic processes of co-operation among states. This paper describes that the Triple-Cs principle can accommodate the diversity (see table below) of the region in effective way and helps to find the ‘unity in diversity’ in the world’s most diversified region
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