Few realize that foreign donors currently disburse funds of at least $ 50 million annually on behalf of the integration of the ASEAN region.  This amount is more than the triple the size of ASEAN’s official annual budget of $ 14 million.  Goals of this foreign support include speeding the establishment of a customs unit, strengthening regional intellectual-property regimes, and empowering civil society to further ASEAN’s plan to create a fully integrated regional community by 2015.  The “ASEAN-US Technical Assistance and Training Facility” alone has a budget of US$ 20 million for the period 2008-2012.

Few also realize the extent to which ASEAN’s far-reaching dependence on donor support—financial help and expert advice—has diminished the organization’s ownership of the regional integration process.  In this lecture, Prof. Dosch will argue that foreign donors have begun to steer Southeast Asian regionalism. 

What motivations and assumptions inform the support of Southeast Asian integration by foreign donors?  Do they cooperate—or compete—in pursuit of this goal? Do the projects they favor reflect one-size-fits-all formulas that neglect the extreme political and economic diversity of Southeast Asia?  The talk will address these and other rarely asked questions that challenge the conventional image of ASEAN as a model of successful external diplomacy for regional development.

Jörn Dosch is Chair in Asia Pacific Studies and Director of the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Leeds, UK. He was previously a Fulbright Scholar at Shorenstein APARC and an assistant professor at the University of Mainz, Germany. Dosch has published some 70 books and academic papers on East and Southeast Asian politics and international relations  Recent titles include The Changing Dynamics of Southeast Asian Politics (2007) and “ASEAN's Reluctant Liberal Turn and the Thorny Road to Democracy Promotion,” The Pacific Review (December 2008).  He has also worked as a consultant for UNDP, the German Foreign Office, and the European Commission.  Recently he evaluated the European Union's cooperation programs with ASEAN and several of its member states.  His 1996 PhD in political science is from the University of Mainz.

Although its people are mainly Muslim, Malaysia is notably diverse.  Many communities of faith live together in relative harmony.  Yet ethnic tensions and decades of authoritarian rule have undermined national unity and a sense of shared purpose.  Since the watershed election of 2008, a revived political opposition and an active civil society have increasingly challenged the divisive politics of race and religion in Malaysia.  But severe obstacles still thwart full democratization and genuine pluralism. 

In his talk, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad will analyze the complexities of Malaysia’s race-based political system, the prospects of the country’s multiracial opposition, and what these dynamics imply for the future of democracy in Malaysia.

Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad was elected to the Selangor State Assembly in Malaysia in March 2008 as a candidate of the opposition People’s Justice Party (Partai Keadilan Rakyat).  His roles in Keadilan include membership in the party’s National Youth Executive Committee.  In 2006-08 he served as private secretary to Keadilan’s de facto leader at the time, Anwar Ibrahim. 

Nik Nazmi is a columnist at the Malaysian Insider and the founder of SuaraAnum.com, a web magazine for young Malaysians.  He has been widely published in, and interviewed by, Malaysian and international media.  He read law and earned his LLB (Honors) from King's College, University of London.  While in London he joined British Muslims in protesting the occupation of Palestine and the war in Iraq.  His undergraduate work was done at the UEM Foundation College in Selangor, where he was elected president of the Student Council.  His secondary education was at the Malay College of Kuala Kangsar, which has been called “the Eton of the East.”  During his student career, he was active in multiple extra-curricular settings, including Muslim and social-service organizations and English-language debating teams.  He was born in Malaysia in 1982.