The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the ASEAN regional forum (ARF)
Emmers questions the dichotomy implicit in this interpretation and investigates what role the balance of power really plays in such cooperative security arrangements and in the calculations of the participants of ASEAN and the ARF. He offers a thorough analysis of the influence the balance of power has had on the formation and evolution of the ASEAN and ARF and reveals the co-existence and inter-relationship between both approaches within the two institutions.
The book contains case studies of Brunei's motives in joining the ASEAN in 1984; ASEAN's response to the Third Indochina Conflict; the workings of the ARF since 1994 and ASEAN's involvement in the South China Sea dispute. It will interest students and researchers of the ASEAN and ARF, the international politics of Southeast Asia, Regionalism and the Balance of Power theory.

Ralf Emmers is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Asian Security at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Introduction 1 Regimes for cooperative security: the formation and institutional evolution of ASEAN and the ARF 2 The role of the balance of power factor within and beyond regimes for cooperative security 3 The balance of power factor and the denial of intra-mural hegemony: ASEAN's early years and its enlargement to include Brunei in 1984 4 The balance of power and extra-mural hegemony: ASEAN's response to the Third Indochina Conflict 5 The post-Cold War regional security context: the role of the balance of power factor within the ARF 6 ASEAN's post-Cold War involvement in the South China Sea dispute: the relevance of associative and balance of power dimensions