ABSTRACT
Scholarship focused on the reason for the rise of Southeast Asian peace revolves primarily around democracy, economic interdependence, and ASEAN security management. It has also been argued that ASEAN security management has been the main force realizing Southeast Asian peace, outweighing democracy and economic interdependence. However, although neither democracy nor economic interdependence has served to pacify the region to any significant degree, prior literature might have exaggerated the pacifying effect of ASEAN security management because it did not clearly single out the effects of Southeast Asian leaders’ intent to promote national economic development while engaged in the process of state-building. When empirical analyses of the onset of militarized disputes between Southeast Asian states takes into account common interests and preferences for adopting economic liberalization policies to drive economic development, it has found that the pursuit of liberal capitalist economic development has exerted a more significant effect in preventing conflicts in Southeast Asia in recent decades.
