Regulatory regionalism and anti-money-laundering governance in Asia

Abstract

With the intensification of the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) worldwide campaign to promote anti-money laundering regulation since the late 1990s, all Asian states except North Korea have signed up to its rules and have established a regional institution -the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering -to promote and oversee the implementation of FATF's 40Recommendations in the region. This paper analyses the FATF regime, making two key claims: first, anti-money laundering governance in Asia reflects a broader shift to regulatory regionalism, particularly in economic matters, in that its implementation and functioning depend upon the rescaling of ostensibly domestic agencies to function within a regional governance regime. Second, although this form of regulatory regionalism is established in order to bypass the perceived constraints of national sovereignty and political will, it nevertheless inevitably becomes entangled within the socio-political conflicts that shape the exercise of state power more broadly. Consequently, understanding the outcomes of regulatory regionalism involves identifying how these conflicts shape how far and in what manner global regulations are adopted and implemented within specific territories. This argument is demonstrated by a case study of Myanmar.

Economic Governance Beyond State and Market: Islamic Capital Markets in Southeast Asia

“…Various inter-governmental fora and dialogues as well as training schemes have been created in which financial policymakers interact regularly with each other and exchange knowledge. Considerable efforts have been undertaken to understand the drivers behind and effectiveness of this rescaling of financial market governance (see Nesadurai 2009;Rethel 2010;Hameiri and Jones 2015). However, in the design of binding regulations and their enforcement, authority remains firmly rooted within the nation-state and the financial bureaucracy comprised of central banks, monetary authorities, securities commissions and their like (Hamilton-Hart 2002).…”

Integrating ASEAN in Labor Migration Policy: From Disjointed to Complementary Actor

“…185–186). The concept has since been expanded to also include subregional and subnational dynamics (Tubilewicz & Jayasuriya, ) and has been applied to several policy areas, including economic governance (Tubilewicz & Jayasuriya, ) and transnational crime such as money laundering (Hameiri & Jones, ).…”

“…Instead it requires the rescaling of ostensibly domestic agencies such that they are inserted within regional governance regimes and deploy international disciplines in other parts of their respective states and societies. (Hameiri & Jones, , p. 145)…”

“…Regulatory regionalism also lends itself to a more favorable operationalization of ASEAN's foundational norms, given that it does not aspire to be a supranational entity that may threaten national sovereignty. This is because regulatory regionalism occurs with states transforming to align with regional agendas as opposed to regions replacing the capacity and functions of states (Hameiri & Jones, ).…”

“…Hameiri () and Hameiri and Jones (2015, p. 147) explain that this transformation of the state is determined by the contestation between “socio‐political forces that are rooted in specific political economy contexts,” but such transformations can also be driven, encouraged, as well as hindered by regional organizations themselves. ASEAN is suitable to be the “hub[s] of a regulatory network, coordinating domestic agencies to manage a transnational problem” (Hameiri & Jones, , p. 145), yet misperceptions of ASEAN's identity and role by members themselves and by actors within the region mean that ASEAN has not been able to embed itself within national, international, and nonstate trends, nor has it been able to foster adequate regional migration governance for low and unskilled workers, or use its normative framework to best effect thus far.…”