What explains the patchy response of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) towards the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons? This Security Dialogue article examines theories and argues that explanations that assign importance to the pre-existing normative environment and the role of local agents are most convincing. ASEAN officials localised small arms as a transnational crime and counter-terrorism issue, which served to close off discussion of sensitive ‘internal’ issues, such as military and police complicity.
In July 2001, the UN convened a major international conference on the ‘illicit trade in small arms and light weapons in all its aspects’ in New York. The meeting produced the United Nations Program of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons (PoA). The ASEAN response has been limited. Rationalist explanations offer plausible accounts for state preferences in Southeast Asia but do not stand up well to cross-regional comparisons. Explanations that focus on the inherently complex or weak nature of the small arms norm also struggle to explain the particular pattern of action in Southeast Asia.
However, explanations that examine the interaction between global norms and established local traditions provide greater analytical leverage. In this case, ASEAN’s prior norms seem to be the most important factor in explaining why there was resistance to developing stronger mechanisms at the regional level.
- Sensitivities over sovereignty presented a major obstacle for campaigners wanting greater regional action against small arms. Many of the initiatives in the PoA raised the possibility of interference in, or at least publicly raising, sensitive domestic issues.
- At the same time, pressure from dialogue partners and UN agencies made it difficult for ASEAN officials to totally disregard the small arms norm. Nevertheless, in every ASEAN meeting from mid-2000 onwards, regional officials consistently stuck to the line that small arms action meant action against transnational crime and terrorism.
- They rejected attempts by external actors such as Australia and Canada to seek broader measures, such as a modest code of conduct regarding transparency in arms transfers.
- The challenge posed by pre-existing local norms was compounded by the lack of influential insider proponents willing to press for the adoption of stronger action. The primary small arms norm proponents were outsiders.
The experiences outlined here confirm the importance of local actors in receiving and reshaping global norms. ASEAN kept what it liked from global small arms instruments and quietly jettisoned the rest.
- The most common experience with the diffusion of ‘global’ norms in the developing world is not a simple dichotomy in which they are either obeyed or disregarded, but something in between.
- Scholars should be more attentive to the processes that follow on from initial norm construction. Much of the work on small arms norms reflects a tendency to focus on the origins of norms but also to assume that a norm ‘once adopted, retains its original meaning’.
- In Southeast Asia, however, the evidence suggests the contrary. The construction of a global small arms norm in the PoA was only the very beginning of a process of dialogue, contestation, framing and counter-framing.
- The mediating role of regional institutions deserves closer inspection in studies of norm diffusion, even in cases like this where the regional grouping is weak in relation to its individual member-states.
