The "Haze" over Southeast Asia: Challenging the ASEAN Mode of Regional Engagement

Abstract

T ? a HOUGH much recent commentary has been devoted to the predicament of ASEAN, the problems that have been its focus have been the regional financial crisis, and the internal tensions generated by the enlargement of the membership. These have been serious enough, and their resolution will leave their marks on the organization. But a further problem, the more serious because it is home-grown, has revealed important failings within the structure of ASEAN. This is the of 1997-98. It is the argument of this paper that the haze crisis poses a dual challenge for the group. First, conventional ASEAN modalities have proved a severe disappointment. A proliferation of meetings and plans have produced little of consequence. The Indonesian regime has been unwilling or unable to put the interest of the neighborhood ahead of those of its closest associates. The effect on the self-image of the group has been corrosive, and the likelihood that these modalities will fail when tested by a crisis of a different kind has increased. Second, non-conventional approaches have been the desperate resort of ASEAN elites, a strategy that has had major implications. Prominent in these approaches has been the positive role accorded to NGOs and transnational opinion groups. This has posed a challenge to the character ofASEAN, given that a number of regimes within the group have been reluctant to accept the legitimacy of such political activity, and also in light of the fact that the accord and consensus of ASEAN has been largely the creature of agreement among in some cases narrow and unrepresentative national elites.