Vietnam's Membership of ASEAN: a Constructivist Interpretation (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) (Report‪)‬

It is widely accepted in Vietnam that the government's decision to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was both timely and wise (Nguyen Phuong Binh and Luan Thuy Duong 2001, p. 192). (1) In the absence of a detailed understanding of the organization's working procedures in Hanoi, and despite ASEAN's lack of robust institutional arrangements to promote regional cooperation (Nguyen Vu Tung 2007), the Vietnamese decision to join ASEAN in the mid-1990s reflected "the political will" of Vietnam to further commit itself to the region. What then was the nature of this political will and to what extent was it guided by material and ideational considerations? Further, what aspects of membership have been most valued by Vietnam? By posing these questions, this article focuses on the ideational logic related to the question of ASEAN membership. The central argument is that in addition to fulfilling certain material considerations, ASEAN membership also helped Vietnam overcome an identity crisis engendered by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Moreover, this rationale still holds for Vietnamese foreign policy in the post-1995 period. Vietnam's Decision to Join ASEAN