Operationalising Regimes and Recognising Actors: Responding to Crises in Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia as a region has a unique history, and the evolving relationships between its communities, states, regional organisations and the international community reflect this. Given this context, there is a need to better understand the motivations of the actors in negotiations, to account for the finished agreement and its impact on the region both in the short and long terms. This paper investigates the motivations behind two regional responses in two different periods of time. The first case under investigation is the set of regional responses formulated to address the Indochinese exodus in the 1970s and 1980s. The second case under investigation is the regional response to those affected by Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar during the late 2000s and early 2010. Both of these agreements have been held up as historic and ground breaking achievements within the international relations of Southeast Asia. Firstly, this paper sets the scene by critically surveying some of the literature on regionalism and game theory. Secondly, this paper investigates the politics behind these bargaining agreements and assesses the structural and agency conditions that surrounded their formulation. Finally, this paper evaluates why these agreements are hailed as historic successes, and then assesses both responses in action. Through the investigation of these two agreements, this paper argues that agency in Southeast Asia was best reflected through the coordination of the regional association as demonstrated by the longer term implications of the Cyclone Nargis response. However, while this particular agreement offers an opportunity for a sustained trusting relationship with the stakeholders, it does not necessarily mean it can be replicated elsewhere but rather provides evidence of the actors’ motivations and provides some policy recommendations to further ground the progress made to make such occurrences more likely to occur in the future