A Comparative Perspective on Doyle’s Liberalism and Bull’s Anarchical Society in ASEAN’s Regional Order

Ahmet Hakan Hatipoğlu

hakanahmethatipoglu@gmail.com

Siyaset Bilimi ve Uluslararası İlişkiler

TOBB Ekonomi ve Teknoloji Üniversitesi

4 Mayıs 2026, Pazartesi

ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) was established in 1967 by 5 founding member states: Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia. Since then, 5 more members have been added. The main purpose of ASEAN is maintaining the political stability of the region and promoting economic growth. The key rule is non-interference, which means not involving in other members’ domestic problems, rules, or laws. Members share problems, needs, and wants in summits and agreements to solve shared issues. It gives an opportunity for smaller members to voice their concerns against bigger powers like the US, EU, and China. ASEAN’s main goal is keeping the region safe and peaceful and integrating the economy among Southeast Asian countries. ASEAN also tries to address post-colonial issues of states and deal with problems like sea and land territories, such as the South China Sea disputes. They hold their meetings in the ASEAN Regional Forum, which creates deals rather than conflicts.

Doyle claims that liberal democracies never fight with each other because of shared values, trade relations, laws, and institutions. Liberalism theory claims that the world is designed and shaped by international rules and respecting laws and institutions for individual rights. In this point of view, actors are not just states but organizations, NGOs, and companies. A supporting argument is that these institutions help to reduce conflicts. ASEAN was a brilliant move for becoming independent without being controlled during the Cold War era. Even though not all ASEAN members are full democracies, like Myanmar and Vietnam, the rest of the members’ constant meetings and dialogues have helped to fix problems peacefully—for example, they helped resolve the border fight between Cambodia and Thailand in 2011.

Peace was provided by the “ASEAN way,” non-aggressive policies. This cooperation overlaps with Doyle’s liberalism theory.

However, the liberal theory of Doyle has some weaknesses in this case. It focuses too much on democracy. Also, the non-interference rule is not always a good thing because it permits human rights problems, such as the Rohingya crisis, which was: Myanmar’s army attacked the Rakhine state and forced 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to escape to Bangladesh, with the given reason being ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Myanmar claimed that they were not citizens even though they had lived in Myanmar for a long time, and this example simply falsifies the ‘cooperation is better than force’ claim.

Doyle’s claim also ignores cultural factors, like how Asian cultures often prefer order and hierarchy, which is completely different from liberalist theories’ emphasis on individual rights. This makes the theory idealistic, not realistic, for ASEAN.

To address these weaknesses, Bull’s English School theory emerges. Bull’s English School Theory, known as the anarchical society, allows order between states without global democracy. Doyle over-relies on democracy to solve problems and keep peace. Bull claims that the world is in anarchy but still maintains an international society. Diplomacy and institutions are not only elements of democracy to build a society. Bull says ASEAN uses consensus to respect states’ independence and sovereignty.

This theory fills the gap in Doyle’s liberalism theory. It explains how ASEAN unites states via culture and non-interference, even with non-democratic members. To give an example, the Rohingya crisis reflects how sovereignty stops other members from intervening. Doyle focuses on human rights but misses the sovereignty part, which Bull emphasizes. Bull’s idea also scopes history, which Doyle ignores.

Bull’s idea gives a better perspective to understand ASEAN. He sees ASEAN as an institution-based regional society, not merely a case from liberal theory.

While Doyle claims peace comes from democratic groups, on the other hand, Bull claims that order comes from a wider set of rules.

With the merger of both perspectives from Doyle and Bull, it creates a better path for understanding ASEAN. Doyle’s liberal idea and Bull’s English School address together ASEAN’s stability, handling problems and inequalities, and the chance to grow a regional society. To sum up, Bull’s theory by itself is not the only factor to understand ASEAN, but with Doyle’s theory, it becomes more complete. ASEAN can be seen as a mix of liberal hopes and social realities. Doyle’s perspective is better in explaining cooperation but fails in implementing Western ideas to the Asian region because every region has its own background. Bull’s English School fixes that part, showing that a society of states can cooperate even though not being democratic.