August 20, 2018

How do Southeast Asian states cooperate to combat piracy in the Straits of Malacca?

Piracy is a great threat to Southeast Asian states, particularly the coastal states in the Straits of Malacca. For this reason, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia came together on 20 July 2004 to form MALSINDO – an effort between the navies, coast guards, and air forces of the three countries to patrol the waters and limit piracy.

The question A/P Terence Lee and Dr Kevin McGahan (Department of Political Science) raise in the 2015 article – Norm subsidiarity and institutional cooperation: explaining the straits of Malacca anti-piracy regime (The Pacific Review) – is why regional anti-piracy efforts were better received than American or Japanese-backed initiatives. To answer this, they present MALSINDO as a case of norm subsidiarity. This term, developed by Amitav Acharya, describes the instance when weaker states come together to create rules addressing a common issue so as to avoid being marginalized if a larger state gets involved. MALSINDO, being an initiative between Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, relies on the naval and air-based forces of the three nations as the three countries are severely threatened by piracy, albeit in significantly different ways. In this way, they also resist the involvement of countries like the United States or Japan in forming policies to regulate piracy that may leave out the interests of the MALSINDO nations.

Lee and McGahan note that the MALSINDO initiative shows that inter-state cooperation can happen with a significant degree of success, despite the states having varied interests in the Straits. The authors suggest that perhaps norm subsidiarity could prove successful in attempting to address other issues plaguing this region, such as illegal immigration and environmental degradation.

Learn more about the article here.