Regionalism and citizenship education – beyond the nation state?

This chapter reflects on the way regionalism has impacted on citizenship education across European Union (EU) and Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) areas of the world. Regionalism is now a feature of the international political, cultural, and economic landscape and can be seen as a feature of Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and North and South America. The legal-aspirational distinction referred to above in terms of regional development in the EU and ASEAN can in some senses also be applied to citizenship education in both regions. ASEAN's actual experience of democracy, however, has been limited, to say the least. Jones has pointed to the fault line in the ASEAN between the developed and democratic states, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, the less developed single-party dictatorships, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and, of course, the sultanate of Brunei.