Abstract: | "ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has made slow progress in defining a regional policy for the protection of migrant workers. This book examines the normative structures within the institutions at play at both state and regional level of ASEAN, which influence the making of a migrant workers protection policy. The author puts forward a novel alternative policy analysis tool--the Two Level State and Regional Analysis--that enables satisfactory explanation for policy making cases, whereby normative institutional structures are involved and social policies are considered. The author argues that that the formulation of a working coherent migrant workers protection policy has not been achieved because of the presence of normative institutional structures with ideas unsupportive to the protection of migrant workers, which results in a slow institutionalisation process. Although the migrant workers in question are their citizens, and migrant sending countries are supposed to have more supportive normative structures for workers protection, the author finds that when examined closesly, institutions in both migrant sending and receiving countries tend to have normative structures that are against workers protection. These arguments drive the analytical questions of the book to inquire about the forms of the normative structures involved and their influence in the relevant institutions"-- Migrant workers protection policy in ASEAN : background -- Towards a new policy analysis of two-level sociological institutionalism -- Existing ASEAN frameworks and developments within the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) -- The present and future of workers migration in ASEAN : perspectives from Malaysia -- The Indonesian experience -- The other second level game : the Philippines perspectives on a regional policy for migrant workers protection -- The road ahead : towards an ASEAN migrant workers protection policy in the era of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and beyond |
