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
basic information about ASEAN, how ASEAN was born and how it has
operated, expanded and developed over the years. My focus is on the
ASEAN Way, ASEAN's agenda-setting and decision-making as well as ASEAN
Community building. The second section describes the fragmented, complex
picture of civil society in Southeast Asia, which has insufficiently and
unevenly developed under unfavourable conditions. The third is about the
engagement between civil society and ASEAN, which has often been
criticised by the former for being elitist 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 essay discusses and analyses the engagement of ASEAN and civil
society in the ASEAN Charter process, in which I examine the
interactions between the EPG and civil society, the latter's efforts to
get access to the actual drafters (the High-level Task Force) and to the
draft itself in spite of the uncooperative attitudes of the ASEAN senior
officials, as well as civil society's reactions to the content of the
charter. [...]
