Habits of peace: Long-term regional cooperation in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The nation-states that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are widely described to be peaceful in their relations with each other, so much so that scholars have referred to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ “long peace.” While it is true that war eludes the region, interstate militarized disputes remain a persistent feature. How can we account for the absence of war between Association of Southeast Asian Nations members in light of persistent militarized disputes? To address this question, this article builds on the emerging International Relations literature on habits and practice in interstate relations. I develop a framework centred on the habitual dispositions of communities of practitioners that focuses on the unreflexive cognitive and behavioural qualities of regional relations. These “habits of peace” circumscribe thinking and behaviour among the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ state practitioners. Specifically, they have led to a toleration of limited violence among Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states. After tracing the existence of these habitual qualities of relations, I demonstrate their effects on regional crisis response, which makes possible community building and maintenance alongside considerable levels of interstate violence. I explore this through an in-depth analysis of the regional response to the 2011 Preah Vihear crisis between Cambodia and Thailand.