PROSPECTS FOR INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF ASEAN AND POTENTIAL FACTORS OF INCREASING ITS IMPACT ON THE REGIONAL POLICY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Abstract

This article describes the major significant and turning points of ASEAN’s regionalism project over the last 50 years. It also attempts to identify the major issues (the ASEAN Security Community (ASC), the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and the ASEAN Social-Cultural Community (ASCC) and challenges to ASEAN’s community building efforts in the future. The achievement of ASEAN in expanding and deepening regional cooperation over the past forty years, at first glance, appear to be significant, particularly when it comes to rhetoric of ASEAN official documents containing new ideas and future plans. A sufficient part of the article features the dynamics of economic and political life in Southeast Asia, which requires the adoption of new mechanisms and forms of regional cooperation. A new generation of leaders of ASEAN began to implement new forms of institution building to facilitate the creation of regional identity and the formation of new regional values. In the short term, ASEAN should adopt such rules, principles and mechanisms of the activity that will help eliminate the obvious disadvantages towards regional integration. As a result, ASEAN should open the door to a new principle of «regional participation», which provides intellectual and practical contribution of non-state actors and civil society groups such as advisory bodies ASEAN in deepening regional cooperation. Key words: Southeast Asia; ASEAN; security cooperation; ASEAN Security Community; ASEAN Economic Community; ASEAN Social-Cultural Community.