ASEAN in a Changing Asia-Pacific

Sammanfattning: This thesis examines how contemporary ASEAN security and defence policies are impacted by a growing external influence in the region. The thesis relies on elite interviews conducted with academic scholars within Southeast Asia. The findings both confirm previous literature and add new insights. ASEAN security cooperation has limitations and more importantly, ASEAN itself is split internally by its own members, which could partially be attributed to the impact of the major external powers. This does however not stop ASEAN and its members from trying to stay in control of the region, by using hedging and balancing tactics to keep the regional status quo. However, with a rapidly changing geopolitical landscape, including new external security alliances and a new regional rebranding to the Indo-Pacific, it shows that ASEAN is not fully in control of the region as they wish. Rather, it is argued that ASEAN’s own security and defence policies are merely reactions to the major powers’ own policies for the region.