International relations in Southeast Asia : Between bilateralism and multilateralism

Since the post- Cold War period, multilateralism has gained prominence as an approach for forging international consensus on a number of issues. Multilateralism refers to three or more countries coming together to deal with issues of common interests. During the Cold War, forging multilateralism consensus on issues tended to be more difficult because of ideological differences between the two blocs. However, the end of the Cold War in 1991, accelerated the process of global development which had an impact on international relations of many regions and, specifically, of Southeast Asia. It led to the expansion of ASEAN in the 1990s to include all ten Southeast Asian countries and subsequently, they introduced a number of multilateral initiatives on their own.