Post-pandemic Southeast Asia: revisiting the relevance of the sovereignty script

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members displayed reluctance to pool resources and projected non-intervention norms during the COVID-19. Nevertheless, the vast ASEAN mechanisms introduced since mid-2023 indicate that Southeast Asian states undertake different imperatives of practicing sovereignty vis-à-vis the shaping of the region’s post-pandemic landscape. In this piece, I argue the relevance of Spandler’s 2024 conception of the ‘sovereignty scripts,’ interpreting a state’s engagements with a regional organization as following a pattern of rule-constrained and enabling interactions. The repertoires of recognized behaviors in post-pandemic Southeast Asia are argued taking the form of two sovereignty scripts: state-relational and people-relational. The perception of ASEAN member states as interdependent actors and being part of a community of providers has led to consensus approaches in ASEAN’s post-pandemic landscape, which includes the introduction of the ‘One Health Initiative,’ vast mechanisms and declarations relating to biosafety and biosecurity, and exploring sustainable financing measures in preparation of public health emergencies in the future. Disagreements were minimal, as ASEAN during Indonesia’s 2023 and Laos’ 2024 chairmanship led to greater regional integration and the focus on long-term mechanisms. Moving forward, the lessons from Southeast Asia’s post-pandemic dynamics is expected to bring greater relevance of the ‘state-relational’ and ‘people-relations’ sovereignty scripts as the primary imperatives of ASEAN member states’ practicing of sovereignty.