4 - Findings on Attitudes, Knowledge, and Orientations Toward ASEAN

Summary

In both the 2007 and 2014 surveys, we have found that students around the region are overwhelmingly positive in their attitudes and orientations toward ASEAN. Across the region, we have found a degree of “ASEAN enthusiasm” amongst students, measured by the percentage of students who “strongly agree” with a range of questions on their perception of the importance of ASEAN and affinity for ASEAN (e.g. the degree to which they see themselves as citizens of ASEAN and see the future of ASEAN as important). In 2007, we reported that ASEAN enthusiasm was strongest in several of the newest and least affluent ASEAN nations (specifically Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam). The least degree of ASEAN enthusiasm appeared in the most affluent ASEAN members, particularly Singapore but also Brunei. Singaporean students as a group displayed an attitude of ambivalence — neither strongly negative nor sceptical, but also not overwhelmingly positive. Amongst students from most of the other ASEAN nations (Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand), the aggregate orientation was overwhelmingly positive, but not to the same “enthusiastic” degree of the members mentioned above. In 2007, we also found a particularly interesting, bimodal distribution of responses amongst students surveyed in Myanmar. The majority displayed positive attitudes similar to that of most ASEAN member states, but a significant minority responded in ways that we termed “ASEAN scepticism”. These students disagreed, or in many cases even strongly disagreed, across the same series of questions — e.g. that they did not feel ASEAN was of benefit to their nation, that they did not feel themselves citizens of ASEAN, and so on.

At the most general level, the results of the 2014 survey largely tracked with those of the 2007 survey. The overall attitudes of students across the region were positive. The greatest degree of ASEAN enthusiasm remained amongst students in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Students in Singapore continued to display a degree of ambivalence toward ASEAN. And elsewhere, the general attitude of students toward ASEAN is strongly positive, though not enthusiastic to the degree found in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. At the same time, within this general overall similarity between the 2007 and 2014 results, there are important and instructive differences with respect to findings from particular nations. We highlight several of these differences here, and discuss them in greater detail in the remainder of this section of the report and the next.