While the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) Blueprint 2025 envisages a centrality of regional architecture in responding to security challenges in the region, divided positions among the member states – mostly visible in the South China Sea dispute – have deepened the pessimism on the fate of APSC. Notwithstanding the persisting intra-ASEAN disunity, the organization has been projecting the goal of ASEAN centrality in the global political arena. The goal highlights ASEAN’s emerging role as the ‘hub’ of regional cooperation in Asia-Pacific hence cohesion is highly expected. This paper aims to examine ASEAN cohesion and how it aligns with the institution’s community-building project. To this aim, it primarily looks at the pattern of divergence and convergence in ASEAN voting behavior across security issues discussed in the UN General Assembly. It also underscores the underlying factors behind the emerging patterns. Using Agreement Index (AI), this paper found that ASEAN member states’ voting highly converges on colonialism, the law of the sea, the Mediterranean region, military expenditures, outer space, peace, and transnational crimes. Alternatively, voting diverges on resolutions related to arms transfer, counterterrorism, and armed conflict. Contributing factors to this pattern include member states' preferences, the identity, value, norms, and cognitive prior of the regional organization, as well as alliance and major powers’ preferences.

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This article draws attention to the proliferation of Rohingya community organisations in Malaysia. Based on interviews with Rohingya activists in Kuala Lumpur greater area, evidence shows that the refugee community organisations continue to be the focal points for welfare service and protection. It is argued that the ambivalent asylum policy and increasingly unfavourable socio-political environment of the host state were mediated by the organisations through support from the accumulated social capital and established social networks in their localities. We also found that despite a call for a united, collaborative Rohingya voice in Malaysia from humanitarian observers, the community continues to mobilise in separate, locally oriented organisations. Contributing factors are shown to derive partly from the structural opportunities and constraints encountered in the local contexts of Malaysia and partly from the persistent intergroup tensions. This article contributes to debates on refugee self-reliance and their prospective role in enhancing host countries’ social and economic life, as indicated by the Global Compact on Refugees. It is also relevant to general debates about refugee mobilisation in transit countries in Southeast Asia.