LGBT rights claiming and political participation in Southeast Asia

Abstract

In this paper, I read the creation of the ASEAN human rights regime, the development of SOGIESC rights claiming (where this denotes sexual orientation, gender identity & expression, and sex characteristics), and the social conflict associated with homophobia and the backlash to LGBT rights through modes of participation analysis. This framework is used to interpret the different uses of rights and values-denominated language and institutions in the context of advocacy for sexuality and gender diversity rights protection. I first explicate the modes of participation approach and reprise how I have previously used this to analyse SOGIESC rights claiming. I then show its utility for understanding the emergence of the elite level human rights regime in ASEAN, before indicating how it can also be used to analyse non-elite resistance to SOGIESC rights. Both elite and non-elite resistance can be linked to the older anti-rights discourse of “Asian Values”, which I illustrate with refence to three states: Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Taken together, these examples illustrate the capacity of modes of participation analysis to provide a persuasive account of the often contrasting and competing politics of human rights in the region.