Understanding the limitations of ASEAN

One of the most important aspects of working within ASEAN is understanding its own limitations. Idealistically countries would work together to enact changes that might seem obvious and relatively easy (for example reducing class economic and religious tensions, stopping illegal fishing with simple legislature, etc), but that idealism itself is impractical unless one were to ignore the decades/centuries of cross-cultural ethnicities, conflicts, economic and social progression, nationality, and agency. Because of this, in your solutions and country positions, you should include why certain conditions within your own countries may inhibit breaking the status quo of prioritizing the interests of elites (military, business, landowning, bureaucratic, and technocratic superiors). Ways to ameliorate issues in the region must then be proposed in conjunction with rather than in ignorance of these factors. Countries outside the immediate 10 ASEAN member states should also be especially aware of such conditions and avoid paternalizing these issues or reducing their complexity.

 Jessica has already written about this in her blog posts and topic synopsis, but here is an additional resource that goes much further into the intentions and limitations of ASEAN:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/02681309309414528