Publication

This paper describes how the 1997 Asian financial crisis altered the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) concept of regional security. The author argues that the crisis led ASEAN to examine its approach to regional security and, as a result, two changes occurred. First, ASEAN began to downplay the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs, and second, the previously non-existent link between economic instability and regional stability emerged, thereby broadening the scope of the concept of security. The paper concludes by exploring the contradiction between ASEAN's identity and the necessity to intervene in the domestic affairs of its members.