Assessment of the ASEAN RSP

This volume has attempted to analyze ASEAN’s role in the creation of regional security that is conceived in broad terms, consistent with the insights of the Copenhagen School of security studies. The concept of RSP has been taken as particularly appropriate to reflect the status of regional cooperation under the ASEAN aegis. By assuming that non state referents, along with states, are components in the shaping of security policies and the building of cooperative security systems, the concept of RSP connotes the idea that regional cooperation originates in a functional demand to create institutions for developing good relationships with neighbors, economic ties and a set of instruments to cope with common sources of insecurity. This quest for cooperation finds its roots in the 1960s, when ASEAN came into existence through the desire of its founding fathers to provide a stable structure for governing fragile states, managing interstate tensions, and facing the various challenges to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Southeast Asian nations, most of which emanated from within the region.