Study On International Institutions For Counter-terrorism Cooperation In Southeast Asia

After the Cold War, international tensions tends to ease, the traditional safe status begins to decline, and the importance of non-traditional security issues gradually increase. Terrorism as an important field of non-traditional security becomes an important issue that decision makers consider. The situation of counterterrorism becomes worse since 2000. "9. 11" incident, the Bali bombing and a series of terrorist attacks in Madrid made the international community realize the great threat of terrorism, which strengthened the determination of States to combat terrorism. US-led global coalition against terrorism destroys Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups, hits the international terrorist forces, and undermines their ability to launch terrorist attacks. With the collapse of the Taliban regime, many al Qaeda members fled to Southeast Asia and combine with local terrorist organizations, which increases the burden on the regional countries to counter terrorism.The growth of Terrorism in Southeast Asia poses a major challenge on regional security, stability and prosperity. Facing the serious threat of terrorism, Southeast Asian countries have taken measures to strengthen national capacity to combat terrorism, seek international cooperation actively, promote sharing of terrorism information and intelligence resources, and negotiate counterterrorism strategies. However, due to a series of historical and practical reasons, there are big differences in Southeast Asian countries in the process of countering terrorism cooperation, which effects the deepening of regional cooperation against terrorism. The scope of anti-terrorism cooperation is relatively narrow and the level of cooperation against terrorism has yet to be deepened. The network of Southeast Asian terrorism is still active and terrorist attacks still occur, which leave a big task to counter terrorism.How to effectively ease the dilemma of collective action to fight against terrorism and promote the implementation of counterterrorism cooperation in Southeast Asia is an important issue need to be clarified both in theory and practice. Currently, the academic study on this question mainly focuses on the introduction and description and little of them explore it from the theoretical level. This paper tries to explore a realistic way to deepen regional cooperation against terrorism to compensate for the related research.Adhering to the basic orientation of individualism, this paper assumes that national countries are the most important actors in international relations; countries in the international system act in accordance with the principle of instrumental rationality; country’s rationality is limited; and countries are opportunistic. On the basis of the assumptions, this paper explores the relationship between international institutions and international cooperation and proves that international institution is a guarantee to international cooperation. Could the international counterterrorism cooperation be achieved under the protection of the international institution?To illustrate this question, this paper analyzes the two important elements which affect the regional anti-terrorism cooperation-transaction costs and the logic of collective action and demonstrates in detail how the international institutions reduce transaction costs and ease the dilemma of collective action. By building such a theoretical framework of regional cooperation against terrorism and using it to analyze anti-terrorism cooperation in Southeast Asia, this paper verifies the theoretical assumptions that the international system is an effective mechanism to ensure the implementation of regional anti-terrorism cooperation.In order to illustrate the theoretical assumptions, this paper conducts a longitudinal study of history of terrorism and counter-terrorism cooperation in Southeast Asia, describes the basic situation of terrorism in Southeast Asia in detail, examines the origins and development of terrorism in Southeast Asia, generalizes the characteristics and impact of terrorism in Southeast Asia, and provides a background for us to understand the terrorism in Southeast Asia. Then, this article traces the history of counter-terrorism cooperation in Southeast Asia and explores the progress achieved in different stage of development. On this basis, this paper analyzes the two important elements which affect the regional anti-terrorism cooperation:transaction costs and the logic of collective action and provides background for analyzing the role of international institution in counter-terrorism cooperation.After "9.11" incident, the Southeast Asia has gradually established a long-term anti-terrorism cooperation institutions including international organizations, regulatory documents, and extra-territorial joint anti-terrorism mechanism. These institutions concentrate on reducing transaction costs and easing the dilemma of collective action to provide effective protection for the implementation of regional anti-terrorism cooperation. On the one hand, the anti-terrorism institutions provide counter-terrorism legal framework for Southeast Asian countries, exchange information on terrorism, stabilize the expectation of actors and reduce transaction costs which contribute to the implementation of counter-terrorism cooperation. On the other hand, the anti-terrorism institutions can provide selective incentives for Southeast Asia countries, reduce the impact of external effects and free-riding behavior and ease the dilemma of collective action occurred in countering terrorism in Southeast Asia. This paper proves that the international institution is an effective mechanism to promote international cooperation against terrorism in Southeast Asia based on the analysis on the role of international institution in countering terrorism in Southeast Asia. However, there are significant deficiencies in the existing anti-terrorism institutional system, which affect the effectiveness of regional cooperation against terrorism.Since there are clear deficiencies in the existing international counterterrorism institutions in Southeast Asia, then improving the system of regional cooperation against terrorism becomes the key to promote the regional anti-terrorism cooperation. How to improve the anti-terrorism system? By comparing anti-terrorism institutions on district-level and international level, this article clarifies the content needed in regional anti-terrorism institutions:First, the scope of institutions should be comprehensive and cover the world, Southeast Asia and national countries. Second, the institutions should be multi-dimensional perspective. Third, the institutions should be platform which anti-terrorism information exchanges. Fourth, the institutions should be accordance with cultural norms in Southeast Asia. Then, this paper explores the realistic path to develop and improve such a institutional system with regional characteristics. Combined with the practice of counter-terrorism cooperation in Southeast Asia, this paper suggests that the road to improve regional anti-terrorism institutional system is to build an institutional framework for joint action against terrorism with common goals and common guidelines. ASEAN is the main body, which aggregates the resources of ARF, APEC, the Asia-Pacific regional ministerial counter-terrorism meeting in Bali, joints great powers outside the region such as United States, Australia, China and Japan, and develops specific anti-terrorism mechanisms.The author comes to a conclusion via research. First of all, anti-terrorism institutions in Southeast Asia establish a legal framework for national action, provide asymmetric information, reduce the transaction costs, and promote regional cooperation against terrorism. Secondly, anti-terrorism institutions in Southeast Asia provide selective incentives for national countries, ease the dilemmas of collective action, and prompt all countries to take an active stance to cooperate. Thirdly, a comprehensive anti-terrorism institutional system with regional characteristics is an effective mechanism to achieve regional cooperation against terrorism.