International Security in the Asia-Pacific: Transcending ASEAN towards Transitional Polycentrism

This volume argues that international security in the Asia-Pacific lends itself to contradictory analyses of centrifugal and centripetal trends. Transitional polycentrism is intrinsically awkward as a description of the security of states and their populations; it implies the loosening of state control and the emergence of newly asserted authority by mixed constellations of intergovernmental organizations and non-state actors. It implies a competition of agendas: threats to the integrity of borders and human security threats such as natural disasters, airliner crashes, and displacement by man-made pollution and food scarcity. Conversely, polycentrism could also imply a return to a more neo-realist oriented international order where great powers ignore ASEAN and steer regional order according to their perceived interests and relative military superiority. This book embraces these contradictory trends as a foundation of analysis and accepts that disorder can also be re-described fromthe perspective of studied detachment as polycentric order.

Alan Chong is Associate Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore. He has published widely on the notion of soft power and the role of ideas in constructing the international relations of Singapore and Asia.