“Indonesia and ASEAN Free Trade Agreement: Nationalist and Regional Integration Strategy”

By Alexander C. Chandra. Lanham

The book Indonesia and ASEAN Free Trade Agreement by Alexander C. Chandra. Laham very interesting for me, because it provides information does not address the current global crisis. However, it examines the debate between globalization, regionalization, and ethnonationalism, particularly related to the development in Indonesia after the regional Asian financial crisis in 1997-1998.

This book explain  regionalism as a mechanism to achieve a new world order, to combat the excess of globalization and minimize the control and abuse by the state, to obtain a better world order, and to improve the regional structure of governance.  He also showed the possible symbiotic relationship between nationalism and regionalism, though there were cases where one benefited more than the others and where no group benefited from the symbiosis.  Indeed, this symbiotic relationship was the hypothesis that the author examines in this book that the two could be mutually reinforcing.  Regionalism should not been seen as a replacement of nationalism, but it was a means to protect the citizens of interdependent international communities.  To examine his hypothesis, he carried out a case study on Indonesian nationalism and ASEAN regional integration, with a special focus on the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA).  Indonesia was chosen because Chandra saw that Indonesia's development had been shaped with nationalism.  ASEAN was selected because of its commitment towards regionalism.

The writer suggested that the world had become both integrated and fragmented at the same time. Global capitalism reminded the leaders of a more internationalized world economy, continuing to widen the search for more profitable ways of production and distribution of goods and services.  On the other hand, nationalist economic policies in both developing and developed economies were also active in countering globalization, with the purpose of protecting their own citizens.

I argued that regionalism had emerged in response to both the rising trend of globalization and nationalism. Traditionally, nationalism was seen as threatening regionalization and globalization.  Nevertheless, today nationalism was very different from that in the past.  Today, nationalism was not necessarily a threat to regionalization and globalization. It could be an important step towards strengthening regionalization and globalization.  Therefore, Regionalism should not been seen as a replacement of nationalism, but it was a means to protect the citizens of interdependent international communities.