"ASEAN’s Next Generation Of Leaders In A Newly Competitive World" - By CWP Alum Ja Ian Chong

Several ASEAN member states are or will be undergoing leadership transitions in the coming years. The Philippines already has a new presidential administration. General elections are due in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand between 2023 and 2024. Singapore’s long-ruling People’s Action Party is set to have a new leader who will serve as only its fourth Prime Minister in almost six decades. Several ASEAN states have experienced the peaceful transfer of political power, which of course bodes well for domestic stability. Unlike past points of leadership change, these political handovers come at a particularly challenging moment for both ASEAN and its members. These new leaders inherit positions where they must navigate intensifying major power competition, an ASEAN under stress, and must do so with populations and state bureaucracies used to the more benign, cooperative, and liberalised world of the 1990s and earlier 2000s. Decisions taken or avoided by ASEAN members now may create path dependencies that may have disproportionate influence in shaping the future of ASEAN and the degree these states can shape regional dynamics.

Spotlight: ASEAN at 55: Navigating a Changing Global Order - https://www.iseas.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ASEANFocus-Sep-2022-Final-Artwork-Online.pdf

Dr. Chong Ja Ian is Associate Professor is the Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore. The views expressed are the author’s own.

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