Examining the engagement between civil society and ASEAN in the ASEAN Charter process

Essay from the year 2008 in the subject South Asian Studies, South-Eastern Asian Studies, grade: A, LUISS Guido Carli (Faculty of Political Science), course: Humanitarian Strategies and Non- Governmental Organisations, language: English, abstract: [...] The introduction is followed by the first section that provides readers with basicinformation about ASEAN, how ASEAN was born and how it has operated, expanded anddeveloped over the years. My focus is on the ASEAN Way, ASEAN's agenda-setting anddecision-making as well as ASEAN Community building. The second section describes thefragmented, complex picture of civil society in Southeast Asia, which has insufficiently andunevenly developed under unfavourable conditions. The third is about the engagementbetween civil society and ASEAN, which has often been criticised by the former for beingelitist and state-centric, prior to the charter process. I divide this section into two periods:before and after the Asian financial crisis. And the fourth - the most important in this essaydiscusses and analyses the engagement of ASEAN and civil society in the ASEAN Charterprocess, in which I examine the interactions between the EPG and civil society, the latter'sefforts to get access to the actual drafters (the High-level Task Force) and to the draft itself inspite of the uncooperative attitudes of the ASEAN senior officials, as well as civil society'sreactions to the content of the charter. [...]