Lee Jones | Queen Mary, University of London (original) (raw)

Books by Lee Jones

Palgrave, 2020

4th Edition This all-new fourth edition of The Political Economy of Southeast Asia constitutes a... more 4th Edition

This all-new fourth edition of The Political Economy of Southeast Asia constitutes a state-of-the-art, comprehensive analysis of the political, economic, social and ecological development of one of the world’s most dynamic regions. With contributions from world-leading experts, the volume is unified by a single theoretical approach: the Murdoch School of political economy, which foregrounds struggles over power and resources and the evolving global context of hyperglobalisation. Themes considered include gender, populism, the transformation of the state, regional governance, aid and the environment. The volume will be of interest to scholars and students across multiple disciplines, including political economy, development studies, international relations and area studies. The findings of contributors will also be of value to civil society, policymakers and anyone interested in Southeast Asia and its development.

Today, international economic sanctions are imposed in response to virtually every serious intern... more Today, international economic sanctions are imposed in response to virtually every serious international crisis, whether to promote regime change and democratisation, punish armed aggression, or check nuclear proliferation. But how exactly is the economic pain inflicted by sanctions supposed to translate into political gain? What are the mechanisms by which sanctions operate - or fail to operate? This is the first comparative study of this vital question.

Drawing on Gramscian state theory, Societies Under Siege provides a novel analytical framework to study how sanctions are mediated through the domestic political economy and state-society relations of target states and filter through into political outcomes - whether those sought by the states imposing sanctions or, as frequently occurs, unintended and even highly perverse consequences. Detailed case studies of sanctions aimed at regime change in three pivotal cases - South Africa, Iraq and Myanmar - are used to explore how different types of sanctions function across time and space. These case studies draw on extensive fieldwork interviews, archival documents and leaked diplomatic cables to provide a unique insight into how undemocratic regimes targeted by sanctions survive or fall.

DescriptionContentsResourcesCoursesAbout the Authors 'Non-traditional' security problems like pa... more DescriptionContentsResourcesCoursesAbout the Authors
'Non-traditional' security problems like pandemic diseases, climate change and terrorism now pervade the global agenda. Many argue that sovereign state-based governance is no longer adequate, demanding and constructing new approaches to manage border-spanning threats. Drawing on critical literature in political science, political geography and political economy, this is the first book that systematically explains the outcomes of these efforts. It shows that transboundary security challenges are primarily governed not through supranational organisations, but by transforming state apparatuses and integrating them into multilevel, regional or global regulatory governance networks. The socio-political contestation shaping this process determines the form, content and operation of transnational security governance regimes. Using three in-depth case studies – environmental degradation, pandemic disease, and transnational crime – this innovative book integrates global governance and international security studies and identifies the political and normative implications of non-traditional security governance, providing insights for scholars and policymakers alike.

- First book on the politics and governance of non-traditional security, giving readers a systematic explanation of how these critical issues are managed in practice.
- Advances a new understanding of transnational/global governance as state transformation and explores its political implications.
- Includes three in-depth case studies, focused mainly in Southeast Asia, around environmental degradation, infectious disease and organised crime/terrorist financing, using extensive fieldwork research.

The member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are famed for clinging to... more The member-states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are famed for clinging to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and resisting the shift to 'post- Westphalian' sovereignty, much to the derision of many critics. Yet the historical record shows that Southeast Asian states have also been involved in subversion, invasion, annexation, proxy warfare, peacekeeping, state-building and humanitarian interventions. How do we make sense of this apparent contradiction, and what is the real state of sovereignty in Southeast Asia today?

Critiquing mainstream constructivist and realist accounts, this book offers a fresh, revisionist history of ASEAN. Drawing on political economy, political geography and state theory, it offers a new approach to theorizing sovereignty and intervention as technologies of power. Focusing on ASEAN states' interventions in Burma, Cambodia and East Timor, it argues that the selective application of sovereignty norms reflects power struggles within Southeast Asian societies.

For full information and reviews, see: http://www.leejones.tk/asean_sovereignty_intervention.html

Journal Articles by Lee Jones

Third World Quarterly, 2019

The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) s... more The volume that we introduce breaks with the prevalent tendency in
International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers (such as
China, Russia, India and Brazil) as unitary actors in international politics.
Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international
domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always
been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political
economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably.
Instead, this collection advances the concept of ‘state transformation’
as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign
policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the
pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven
processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation
of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state
transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ most
important foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the
wider field in IR.

Journal of Global Security Studies, 2018

A rapidly growing, self-identified scholarly subfield on "Security Governance" has recently emerg... more A rapidly growing, self-identified scholarly subfield on "Security Governance" has recently emerged. Its signal contribution has been to explicate the expansion of security governance beyond traditional defense multilateralism to include diverse actors, networked transnationally across multiple scales. However, this literature is predominantly descriptive and evaluative. Lacking an explanatory theory, it struggles to explain security governance outcomes convincingly. This article advances this body of literature by presenting an explanatory theoretical framework, which sees security governance as being produced through struggles over the appropriate scale of governance and the transformation of state apparatuses, shaped by specific state-society and political economy contexts. This framework is used to explain outcomes in the governance of money laundering and terrorist financing in the Asia-Pacific region and in Africa. Contrary to the expectations of Security Governance scholars that states in these regions generally fail to engage in security governance, the case studies illustrate that significant governance innovation has in fact occurred. This innovation is not the result of supranational multilateralization, but of the transformation and partial internationalization of domestic institutions-to an extent determined by local socio-political struggles over governance rescaling. Our framework thus accounts for real world outcomes; explains, rather than merely describes, the functional efficacy of security governance regimes; and enables normative assessment by identifying the winners and losers that emerge out of governance innovation.

The massive overseas expansion of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of C... more The massive overseas expansion of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of China’s ‘rise’ to great-power status. There is significant disagreement, however, over how to interpret SOEs’ role. Are they instruments of Chinese statecraft, being directed purposefully from Beijing as part of a ‘grand strategy’? Or are they relatively autonomous, profit-maximising businesses, their free-wheeling behaviour often undermining Chinese foreign policy? Finding that there is evidence for both theses, we provide a framework to explain this. We propose theorising party-state/SOEs relations using the concepts of state transformation and regulatory statehood. We show that the Chinese state’s fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation since the late 1970s has substantially increased SOE autonomy and weakened but also transformed the executive’s control, reconfiguring it towards a regulatory mode of governance. Party-state/SOEs relations are thus characterised not by direct command and control but weak oversight and ongoing struggles within the party-state. We illustrate this using a case study of China Power Investment Corporation and its Myitsone hydropower dam project in Myanmar. Here, a central SOE clearly defied and subverted central regulations, profoundly damaging Sino-Myanmar state-to-state relations. Party-state authorities are now struggling to rein in this and other central SOEs.

The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have ... more The evident failures of international peacebuilding and statebuilding interventions (PSBIs) have recently prompted a focus on the interaction between interventions and target societies and states. Especially popular has been the ‘hybridity’ approach, which understands forms of peace and governance emerging through the mixing of local and international agendas and institutions. This article argues that hybridity is a highly problematic optic. Despite contrary claims, hybridity scholarship falsely dichotomizes ‘local’ and ‘international’ ideal-typical assemblages, and incorrectly presents outcomes as stemming from conflict and accommodation between them. Scholarship in political geography and state theory provides better tools for explaining PSBIs’ outcomes as reflecting socio-political contestation over power and resources. We theorize PSBIs as involving a politics of scale, where different social forces promote and resist alternative scales and modes of governance, depending on their interests and agendas. Contestation between these forces, which may be located at different scales and involved in complex, tactical, multi-scalar alliances, explains the uneven outcomes of international intervention. We demonstrate this using a case study of East Timor, focusing on decentralization and land policy.

Many argue today that global governance is ‘in crisis’. This reflects an undue emphasis on the fa... more Many argue today that global governance is ‘in crisis’. This reflects an undue emphasis on the fate of multilateral
institutions: if they are deadlocked, global governance does not appear to be progressing. This is misplaced. Today,
global governance is increasingly being pursued not by erecting supranational institutions empowered to govern issue
areas directly, but by transforming states’ internal governance to enact international disciplines domestically. In many
policy domains, efforts are underway to reshape state institutions, laws and governance processes in accordance with
global priorities, regulatory standards and action plans. However, because these moves privilege certain interests and
ideologies over others, this is a heavily contested process. The politics of global governance thus occurs not just at the
global level, but at the local level too. The argument in this article is illustrated using examples from maritime security
and anti-money laundering governance.

International Studies Quarterly, 57, no. 3 (2013): 462-73., Sep 13, 2013

The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issue... more The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issues outside the traditional concern with interstate military conflict. However, this literature offers only limited explanations of this tendency and largely neglects to explain how the new security issues are actually governed in practice, despite apparent “securitization” leading to divergent outcomes across time and space. We argue that the rise of non-traditional security should be conceptualized not simply as the discursive identification of new threats but as part of a deep-seated historical transformation in the scale of state institutions and activities, notably the rise of regulatory forms of statehood and the relativization of scales of governance. The most salient feature of the politics of non-traditional security lies in key actors’ efforts to rescale the governance of particular issues from the national level to a variety of new spatial and territorial arenas and, in so doing, transform state apparatuses. The governance that actually emerges in practice can be understood as an outcome of conflicts between these actors and those resisting their rescaling attempts. The argument is illustrated with a case study of environmental security governance in Southeast Asia.

All reliable indicators suggest that ASEAN’s (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Economic Co... more All reliable indicators suggest that ASEAN’s (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Economic Community (AEC) will not be successfully established by its 2015 deadline. Why? Against technocratic, realist and constructivist accounts, this article offers an explanation rooted in the political economy of ASEAN’s member-states. Economic liberalisation agreements promote the rescaling of economic governance, involving regulatory changes that may radically redistribute power and resources. Consequently, they are heavily contested between coalitions of social and political forces, without outcomes reflecting the outcome of these struggles. The argument is demonstrated by exploring the uneven sectoral liberalisation achieved under the AEC, the constrained integration of ASEAN’s
energy markets, and the limited deregulation of skilled labour migration.

European Journal of International Relations, 2015

This article draws attention to the transformation of statehood under globalisation as a crucial ... more This article draws attention to the transformation of statehood under globalisation as a crucial dynamic shaping the emergence and conduct of ‘rising powers’. That states are becoming increasingly fragmented, decentralised and internationalised is noted by some international political economy and global governance scholars, but is neglected in International Relations treatments of rising powers. This article critiques this neglect, demonstrating the importance of state transformation in understanding emerging powers’ foreign and security policies, and their attempts to manage their increasingly transnational interests by promoting state transformation elsewhere, particularly in their near-abroad. It demonstrates the argument using the case of China, typically understood as a classical ‘Westphalian’ state. In reality, the Chinese state’s substantial disaggregation profoundly shapes its external conduct in overseas development assistance and conflict zones like the South China Sea, and in its promotion of extraterritorial governance arrangements in spaces like the Greater Mekong Subregion.

International Politics, Mar 20, 2015

Given the common association of non-traditional security (NTS) problems with globalisation, surp... more Given the common association of non-traditional security (NTS) problems
with globalisation, surprisingly little attention has been paid to how the political economy
context of given NTS issues shapes how they are securitised and managed in practice. We
argue that security and its governance are always highly contested because different
modes of security governance invariably privilege particular interests and normative
agendas in state and society, which relate directly to the political economy. Drawing on
critical political geography, we argue that, because NTS issues are perceived as at least
potentially transnational, their securitisation often involves strategic attempts by actors
and coalitions to ‘rescale’ their governance beyond the national political and institutional
arenas, into new, expert-dominated modes of governance. Such efforts are often resisted
by other coalitions, for which this rescaling is deleterious. As evidenced by a case study of
avian influenza in Indonesia, particular governance outcomes depend upon the nature of
the coalitions assembled for and against rescaling in specific situations, while these coalitions’
makeup and relative strength is shaped by the political economy of the industries
that rescaling would affect, viewed against the broader backdrop of state-society relations.

International Politics, Mar 20, 2015

In recent decades, the security agenda for states and international organisations has expanded t... more In recent decades, the security agenda for states and international organisations
has expanded to include a range of ‘non-traditional’, transnational security issues.
Globalisation is often seen as a key driver for the emergence or intensification of these
problems, but, surprisingly, little sustained scholarly effort has been made to examine the
link between responses to the new security agenda and the changing political economy.
This special issue, which this article introduces, aims to overcome this significant gap. In
particular, it focuses on three key themes: the broad relationship between security and
political economy; what is being secured in the name of security and how this has changed;
and how things are being secured – what modes of governance have emerged to manage
security problems. In all of these areas, the contributions point to the crucial role of the state
in translating shifting state–economy relations to new security definitions and practices.

With the intensification of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) worldwide campaign to prom... more With the intensification of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) 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 40 Recommendations in the region. This article 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.

Australian Journal of International Affairs

With the intensification of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) worldwide campaign to pro... more With the intensification of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s)
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 40 Recommendations in the region. This article 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.

The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issue... more The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issues outside the traditional concern with interstate military conflict. However, this literature offers only limited explanations of this tendency, and largely neglects to explain how the new security issues are actually governed in practice, despite apparent “securitization” leading to divergent outcomes across time and space. We argue that the rise of non-traditional security should be conceptualized not simply as the discursive identification of new threats but as part of a deep-seated historical transformation in the scale of state institutions and activities, notably the rise of regulatory forms of statehood and the relativization of scales of governance. The most salient feature of the politics of non-traditional security lies in key actors’ efforts to rescale the governance of particular issues from the national level to a variety of new spatial and territorial arenas and, in so doing, transform state apparatuses. The governance that actually emerges in practice can be understood as an outcome of conflicts between these actors and those resisting their rescaling attempts. The argument is illustrated with a case study of environmental security governance in Southeast Asia.

Democratization, Jan 28, 2014

In 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22 years of direct military rule. Few com... more In 2010, Myanmar (Burma) held its first elections after 22 years of direct military rule. Few compelling explanations for this regime transition have emerged. This article critiques popular accounts and potential explanations generated by theories of authoritarian “regime breakdown” and “regime maintenance”. It returns instead to the classical literature on military intervention and withdrawal. Military regimes, when not terminated by internal factionalism or external unrest, typically liberalise once they feel they have sufficiently addressed the crises that prompted their seizure of power. This was the case in Myanmar. The military intervened for fear that political unrest and ethnic-minority separatist insurgencies would destroy Myanmar’s always-fragile territorial integrity and sovereignty. Far from suddenly liberalising in 2010, the regime sought to create a “disciplined democracy” to safeguard its preferred social and political order twice before, but was thwarted by societal opposition. Its success in 2010 stemmed from a strategy of coercive state-building and economic incorporation via “ceasefire capitalism”, which weakened and co-opted much of the opposition. Having altered the balance of forces in its favour, the regime felt sufficiently confident to impose its preferred settlement. However, the transition neither reflected total “victory” for the military nor secured a genuine or lasting peace.

Journal of Contemporary Asia, Feb 7, 2013

Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to ... more Since holding elections in 2010, Myanmar has transitioned from a direct military dictatorship to a formally democratic system and has embarked on a period of rapid economic reform. After two decades of military rule, the pace of change has startled almost everyone and led to a great deal of cautious optimism. To make sense of the transition and assess the case for optimism, this article explores the political economy of Myanmar’s dual transition from state socialism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy. It analyses changes within Myanmar society from a critical political economy perspective in order to both situate these developments within broader regional trends and to evaluate the country’s current trajectory. In particular, the emergence of state-mediated capitalism and politico-business complexes in Myanmar’s borderlands are emphasised. These dynamics, which have empowered a narrow oligarchy, are less likely to be undone by the reform process than to fundamentally shape the contours of reform. Consequently, Myanmar’s future may not be unlike those of other Southeast Asian states that have experienced similar developmental trajectories.

Review of International Studies, Sep 30, 2013

This article explores how sovereignty and (non-)intervention are implicated in the (re)production... more This article explores how sovereignty and (non-)intervention are implicated in the (re)production of specific social orders. Sovereignty and the non-interference principle circumscribe
‘domestic’ politics from ‘the international’, defining who is legitimately included or excluded from the struggles that determine political and social orders. State managers seek to admit forces and resources favourable to the order they are seeking to create, whilst excluding those deleterious to it. In revolutionary periods, however, these attempts to ‘cage’ social relations often crumble as transnational forces engage in fierce, multifaceted conflicts overlapping territorial borders. In such circumstances, both norms of non-interference and practices of
intervention may be used by dominant forces to help contain the spread of sociopolitical conflict and to strengthen their hand in the struggle to (re)define social order. Sovereignty regimes are thus shaped by the strategies and ideologies of the various social groups locked in conflict at a particular historical moment. This argument is illustrated through the case of Cold War Southeast Asia, where sovereignty and intervention were both used to stabilise capitalist social order and curtail transnational, radical threats from below.

Palgrave, 2020

4th Edition This all-new fourth edition of The Political Economy of Southeast Asia constitutes a... more 4th Edition

For full information and reviews, see: http://www.leejones.tk/asean_sovereignty_intervention.html

Third World Quarterly, 2019

Journal of Global Security Studies, 2018

International Studies Quarterly, 57, no. 3 (2013): 462-73., Sep 13, 2013

European Journal of International Relations, 2015

International Politics, Mar 20, 2015

Australian Journal of International Affairs

The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issue... more The international security literature has recently observed the growing “securitization” of issues outside the traditional concern with interstate military conflict. However, this literature offers only limited explanations of this tendency, and largely neglects to explain how the new security issues are actually governed in practice, despite apparent “securitization” leading to divergent outcomes across time and space. We argue that the rise of non-traditional security should be conceptualized not simply as the discursive identification of new threats but as part of a deep-seated historical transformation in the scale of state institutions and activities, notably the rise of regulatory forms of statehood and the relativization of scales of governance. The most salient feature of the politics of non-traditional security lies in key actors’ efforts to rescale the governance of particular issues from the national level to a variety of new spatial and territorial arenas and, in so doing, transform state apparatuses. The governance that actually emerges in practice can be understood as an outcome of conflicts between these actors and those resisting their rescaling attempts. The argument is illustrated with a case study of environmental security governance in Southeast Asia.

Democratization, Jan 28, 2014

Journal of Contemporary Asia, Feb 7, 2013

Review of International Studies, Sep 30, 2013

International Studies Quarterly, Sep 2013

The international security literature has recently observed the growing ‘‘securitization’’ of iss... more The international security literature has recently observed the growing ‘‘securitization’’ of issues outside the traditional concern with interstate military conflict. However, this literature offers only limited explanations of this tendency and largely neglects to explain how the new security issues are actually governed in practice, despite apparent ‘‘securitization’’ leading to divergent outcomes across time and space. We argue that the rise of non-traditional security should be conceptualized not simply as the discursive identification of new threats but as part of a deep-seated historical transformation in the scale of state institutions and activities, notably the rise of regulatory forms of statehood and the relativization of scales of governance. The most salient feature of the politics of non-traditional security lies in key actors’ efforts to rescale the governance of particular issues from the national level to a variety of new spatial and territorial arenas and, in so doing, transform state apparatuses. The governance that actually emerges in practice can be understood as an outcome of conflicts between these actors and those resisting their rescaling attempts. The argument is illustrated with a case study of environmental security governance in Southeast Asia.

"Since the late 1980s, the scope of security policy has widened dramatically to encompass a wide ... more "Since the late 1980s, the scope of security policy has widened dramatically to encompass a wide range of ‘non-traditional’ threats. Southeast Asian states have superficially appeared to embrace this trend, broadening their security discourse considerably. However, they are also often criticized for failing to translate this discursive shift into concrete regional cooperation to tackle these new threats. This article critiques the dominant theoretical framework used to explore the widening of states' security agendas – the Copenhagen School's ‘securitization’ approach – as unable to account for this gap due to its fixation on security discourse rather than practice. Drawing on state theory and insights from critical political economy, the article argues that the scope of regional security policy is better accounted for by the distinctive nature of state–society relations within Southeast Asia. The argument is advanced using case studies of Southeast Asian states' policies toward Burma, environmental degradation, and border conflicts.
Available via my website, www.leejones.tk

One potential explanation for the persistent gap between international state-builders' aspiration... more One potential explanation for the persistent gap between international state-builders' aspirations and achievements is their misguided understanding of states as institutional apparatuses abstracted and separated from society. State-society interpenetration is actually the historical norm, and a proper understanding of state forms requires close analysis of the conflicts between different social forces as they promote state projects that will advance particular interests over others. International state-builders are best conceptualised as merely one—albeit important—party to this ongoing struggle, which state-builders have no realistic hope of taming. The argument is illustrated by the case of East Timor. Both Indonesian and UN efforts to transplant state projects into Timorese society, even when backed by tremendous economic and coercive resources, failed to simply penetrate and dominate, or to create a technically efficient state insulated from, society. Rather, their state projects became interpenetrated with the society they sought to govern, and thus became shot through with social conflict. Neither more 'capacity-building' nor 'participatory intervention' can eliminate this conflict, nor evacuate it from the state.
[the full version is available via my website, http://www.leejones.tk]

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is widely supposed by theorists and commentato... more The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is widely supposed by theorists and commentators of many persuasions to have elevated the principle of absolute non-interference in the internal affairs of states into a central pillar of Southeast Asian regionalism. Non-interference is also criticised for retarding ASEAN from taking meaningful action over economic crises, problematic members like Myanmar, and transnational security threats. This article critiques this consensus, arguing that the norm has never been absolute, but has rather been upheld or ignored in line with the interests of the region's dominant social forces. While the principle formally remains in place despite such challenges and serious instances of violation, it is now subject to competing demands and contestation.
[the full version is available via my website, http://www.leejones.tk; for the fullest account, see my book, 'ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia' (Palgrave, 2012) http://www.leejones.tk/asean_sovereignty_intervention.html]

in Adam Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly and Ian Holliday (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary My... more in Adam Simpson, Nicholas Farrelly and Ian Holliday (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar (London: Routledge, 2017), 181-191

This chapter provides a basic, general overview of the main features of Myanmar’s political economy to help contextualise the more specific chapters that follow in this section. Myanmar’s economy today contrasts starkly with those of its more developed Southeast Asian neighbours
like Thailand and Malaysia. While the latter underwent rapid industrialisation from the 1970s, becoming middle-income economies, Myanmar remains one of the world’s poorest countries, with socio-economic indicators slightly worse than Southeast Asia’s other post-‘socialist’ economies and comparable to underdeveloped African states. Beyond these headline data, Myanmar is also struggling to reform an economy characterised by severe capital scarcity; atrocious infrastructure; a rapacious, extractive and predatory mode of
development; rampant corruption; and the concentration of economic power in a small elite clustered around the military. While these arrangements staved off state collapse in the face of economic crisis and Western sanctions, they have perpetuated patterns of violence,
poverty and exclusion that have changed little since the installation of an electoral regime in 2010–2011. This chapter explores the two major dynamics shaping this outcome: the failure of Cold War-era ‘socialist’ development, which retarded the development of class forces and
locked Myanmar into a resource-exporting, capital-importing model; and the post-Cold War, politically-constrained moves towards marketisation, which concentrated economic power in a small elite. The implications for Myanmar’s contemporary political economy and the ‘reform’ process are then considered before the conclusion.

This chapter analyses the geopolitical and state building context of the ceasefire between the Ka... more This chapter analyses the geopolitical and state building context of the ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Organisation and the Myanmar government (1994-2011), providing a broad introduction to help the reader understand the more detailed and specific social and political processes considered in the rest of this volume. It first explains the dynamics that allowed the ceasefires to emerge, particularly the decline of the Cold War leading to the collapse of ethnic-minority alliances and the reorientation of Chinese and Thai foreign policy. It will also explain how the emergence of a new military government with a strategy of state building through ceasefires converged with the war-weariness of rebel groups. The chapter then analyses the ceasefires themselves, giving an overview of the social, political and economic transformations that occurred during the ceasefire period in the Kachin region, which shall be explored in much detail from various perspectives in the following chapters. Ultimately, it argues that the political, economic and social processes unleashed during the ceasefire actually helped erode it in the absence of a genuine political settlement.

in Richard Robison (ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Southeast Asian Politics (London: Routledge 2011), 346-360

in Robert Egnell and Peter Haldén (eds.) New Agendas in State Building: Hybridity, Contingency and History (London: Routledge, 2013), 70-91

Critical reviews of: Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context by... more Critical reviews of:

Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context by Daniel A. Bell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006

The Changing Dynamics of Southeast Asian Politics by Jorn Dosch. London: Lynne Rienner, 2007.

Globalization, Democratization and Asian Leadership: Power Sharing, Foreign Policy and Society in the Philippines and Japan by Vincent Kelly Pollard. London: Ashgate, 2004.

[the full version is available via my website, http://www.leejones.tk]

[the full version is available via my website, http://www.leejones.tk\]

ASEASUK Newsletter 55, pp. 17-19.

in ASEASUK News no. 46 (Autumn 2009), pp. 40-42

Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 2014

This paper surveys the growing application of the ‘Murdoch School’ (MS) approach to domestic poli... more This paper surveys the growing application of the ‘Murdoch School’ (MS) approach to domestic politics and political economy to address issues of international scope. The origins of the MS are in comparative politics. As such, although it has always had some engagement with international dynamics – e.g. the Cold War, the Asian Financial Crisis – this has mostly entailed a limited evaluation of their impact on domestic power relations. More recently, however, scholars concerned with questions emanating from International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy have begun adapting MS approaches for their purposes. A small number of studies sought to explain how domestic relations are expressed internationally, but without theorising the international level. A relatively recent research agenda has aimed to more directly explore how international dynamics are filtered through domestic relations. For some, this has entailed only limited engagement with the intervening agents, maintaining a focus on how local power relations shape outcomes. Others have focused far more explicitly on the intervening agents, and their interrelations with domestic power structures. This has led to the realisation that interventions blur the line between domestic and international politics, which underpins the ontology of both the MS and much IR theory. A consequence has been a research agenda dedicated to the study of state internationalisation and transformation, requiring additional theoretical resources, drawn mainly from state theory and political geography, to supplement the MS’s emphasis on local power relations and IR’s study of interstate relations. Thus, the MS, for the first time, directly engages, and extends, IR theory.

This paper critiques the prevailing understanding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (... more This paper critiques the prevailing understanding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a norm-governed regional body by critically examining the norm of non-interference, which is universally regarded as the centre-piece of the so-called ‘ASEAN way’ of regionalism, even by scholars and commentators who are profoundly opposed to it. This overwhelming consensus fares very badly when confronted with empirical evidence to the contrary, which shows that ASEAN states have frequently meddled in the internal affairs of other countries. The paper considers and rejects constructivist and realist explanations of intervention and advances a more coherent logic based on the insights of historical materialism. The paper’s basic argument is that ASEAN states’ fundamental purpose during the Cold War, reflecting the social forces in control of them, was to maintain non-communist social orders. To the extent that non-interference served this purpose, it was respected; but when it did not, it was discarded or twisted to serve the cause of disguising blatant intervention.

[note that a more developed version of this argument, which extends beyond the Cold War, has since been published as 'ASEAN's Unchanged Melody? The Theory and Practice of Non-Intervention in Southeast Asia', Pacific Review 23:3 (2010), 479-502. This article is available via my website, http://www.leejones.tk. For the fullest account, see my book, 'ASEAN, Sovereignty and Intervention in Southeast Asia' (Palgrave, 2012) http://www.leejones.tk/asean_sovereignty_intervention.html]

Chris Heaton-Harris MP was wrong to ask vice-chancellors for details of their Brexit teaching, an... more Chris Heaton-Harris MP was wrong to ask vice-chancellors for details of their Brexit teaching, and the subsequent Daily Mail witch-hunt against Remainers is contemptible. But, Lee Jones argues, the imbroglio does highlight some serious problems within academia and its relationship to wider society. As one of the small handful of openly pro-Brexit academics, I was quoted in all of the ...

How do we determine whether international economic sanctions are “successful”? So far, the sancti... more How do we determine whether international economic sanctions are “successful”? So far, the sanctions literature has held closely to the answer that they believe policymakers would give: they are successful insofar as they compel the target of sanctions to comply with the senders’ stated demands. Yet in their haste to provide policy advice on whether sanctions work, scholars have neglected two critical points. First, even if the benchmark is “compliance”, the assessment of sanctions’ success rate has proceeded without the development of a robust methodology for doing so. The subfield exhibits a “reverse” development where methodological considerations are only debated after the success rate. Secondly, the fixation on compliance neglects ample evidence that sanctions are intended to secure many other goals unrelated to the target’s behaviour, both domestically in the sender-states, and internationally. It makes no sense to evaluate these latter goals by reference to the target’s compliance. This paper provides a critical overview of these shortcomings, then specifies a broad range of target-related, sender-related, and system-related goals that are sought through the use of sanctions, briefly suggesting ways in which an interpretive methodology might be developed to properly evaluate “success”. It emphasises the need for critical reflection on the findings. Rather than being used to salvage the case for sanctions being “successful”, success in senderand system-related goals but failure in target-related ones is a cause for ethical concern, not celebration. To cite this paper: Jones, L. and Portela, C. (2014) “Evaluating the ‘Success’ of International Economic Sanctions: Multiple Goals, Interpretive Methods and Critique”, Centre for the Study of Global Security and Development working paper 3. Available at: http://www.cgsd.org.uk/images/cgsd/jonesportela.pdf.

International Politics, 2015

The Pacific Review, 2007

Despite their other theoretical differences, virtually all scholars of the Association of Southea... more Despite their other theoretical differences, virtually all scholars of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agree that the organization's members share an almost religious commitment to the norm of non-intervention. This article disrupts this consensus, arguing that ASEAN repeatedly intervened in Cambodia's internal political conflicts from 1979 to 1999, often with powerful and destructive effects. ASEAN's role in maintaining Khmer Rouge occupancy of Cambodia's UN seat, constructing a new coalition government in exile, manipulating Khmer refugee camps and informing the content of the Cambodian peace process will be explored, before turning to the ‘creeping conditionality’ for ASEAN membership imposed after the 1997 ‘coup’ in Phnom Penh. The article argues for an analysis recognizing the political nature of intervention, and seeks to explain both the creation of non-intervention norms and specific violations of them as attempts by ASEAN elites to maintain their own illiberal, capitalist regimes against domestic and international political threats.

Review of International Studies, 2013

This article explores how sovereignty and (non-)intervention are implicated in the (re)production... more This article explores how sovereignty and (non-)intervention are implicated in the (re)production of specific social orders. Sovereignty and the non-interference principle circumscribe ‘domestic’ politics from ‘the international’, defining who is legitimately included or excluded from the struggles that determine political and social orders. State managers seek to admit forces and resources favourable to the order they are seeking to create, whilst excluding those deleterious to it. In revolutionary periods, however, these attempts to ‘cage’ social relations often crumble as transnational forces engage in fierce, multifaceted conflicts overlapping territorial borders. In such circumstances, both norms of non-interference and practices of intervention may be used by dominant forces to help contain the spread of sociopolitical conflict and to strengthen their hand in the struggle to (re)define social order. Sovereignty regimes are thus shaped by the strategies and ideologies of the va...

Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2013

International Studies Quarterly, 2012

Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 2009

Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2014

Boycotts Past and Present

Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals

Journal of Contemporary China

ABSTRACT Chinese firms have acquired enormous overseas interests since 2000. As relative latecome... more ABSTRACT Chinese firms have acquired enormous overseas interests since 2000. As relative latecomers to global markets, they often invest in territories subject to high political risk, which is often heightened by poorly regulated Chinese practices. This article describes these risks to China’s growing overseas economic interests and explores China’s response to them. First, the Chinese party-state is gradually softening its insistence on ‘non-interference’, intervening to secure Chinese economic interests overseas. Second, Chinese actors are seeking to cultivate greater consent among social forces in key states. This partial convergence with the practices of other major capitalist states has important implications for debates on China’s rise. These arguments are illustrated through a case study of Chinese engagement in Myanmar after 2011.

Third World Quarterly, 2019

China’s massive ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) – designed to build infrastructure and coordinat... more China’s massive ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ (BRI) – designed to build infrastructure and coordinate policymaking across Eurasia and eastern Africa – is widely seen as a clearly-defined, top-down ‘grand strategy’, reflecting Beijing’s growing ambition to reshape, or even dominate, regional and international order. This article argues that this view is mistaken. Foregrounding transformations in the Chinese party-state that shape China’s foreign policy-making, it shows that, rather than being a coherent, geopolitically-driven grand strategy, BRI is an extremely loose, indeterminate scheme, driven primarily by competing domestic interests, particularly state capitalist interests, whose struggle for power and resources are already shaping BRI’s design and implementation. This will generate outcomes that often diverge from top leaders’ intentions and may even undermine key foreign policy goals.

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 2010

Non-Traditional Security and the Politics of State Transformation, 2015