ASIA-PACIFIC SECURITY (original) (raw)
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Alternative realities: Explaining security in the Asia-Pacific
Review of International Studies, 2017
The central argument of this article is that constructivists in particular underestimate or even ignore the importance of the 'real' structural inheritance that shapes state (and the political elites that represent them) behaviour. Even though the future is indeterminate, some outcomes are decidedly more likely than others, especially where policymakers believe they inhabit a strategic universe of zero sum outcomes and where self-reliance and assertion remain important. I suggest that 'critical realism' offers a way of accounting for the institutional structures that shape international behaviour. The first half of this article makes the case for a critical realist approach. The second half illustrates the possible importance of this claim with reference to the contemporary geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.
Constructivism in Security Studies on Pacific Asia: Assessing Its Strengths and Weaknesses*
Pacific Focus, 2008
Columbia, and then at the International Studies Association Convention in New Orleans in March 2002. I would like to thank the participants, especially Professors Brian Job and Yves Tiberghien, for their helpful comments on the first draft. 1 also would like to thank Professor Amitav Acharya for his thoughtful reactions to this paper and my colleagues-Linda Grove. John Clammer. and Tadashi Anno-at the Faculty of Comparative Culture, Sophia University, for excellent feedback.
“Power Bumps on the Way to Community: Asia’s Competing Security Logics”
Changing security dynamics in East Asia: A post-US regional order in the making? (Edited by Elena Atanassova-Cornelis and Frans-Paul van der Putten), 2014
This chapter focuses East Asia’s evolving mix of regional institutions as an important response to recurrent uncertainties about US commitments. Specifically, it considers “regional community” as an analytical lens, normative ideal, and policy objective that has informed the emergence and development of regional institutions in East Asia. While theoretically and practically contested, such community regional conceptualizations have also intervened to broaden East Asian conceptualizations of regional order beyond the US-centric conceptualizations of the past. In this sense, the real significance of community conceptualizations – even if contested – lies in their projection of regional order that is more China-inclusive, that gives a greater standing to smaller and middle powers, and that equates “security” with more than “stability” compared to the US system of alliances and relations that defined East Asia’s Cold War system. The result is a system of mixed community and deterrence security logics. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the US “rebalance to Asia” under the Obama presidency as indicative of East Asia’s different logics – logics that compete but also now condition the other.
Critical security in the Asia-Pacific: an introduction, Critical Studies on Security (2017)
Ten years ago, Anthony Burke and I published an edited book: Critical Security in the Asia-Pacific (Manchester UP, 2007). The book endorsed a broad conceptualisation of critical security that encompassed both deconstructive and reconstructive approaches, while contributors applied these approaches to issues in the Asia-Pacific region as diverse as the North Korean nuclear program, Australian foreign and security policy, Indonesian separatism and the role of the military in southeast Asia, among others. This special issue, arising from a series of papers presented at the ISA Asia-Pacific conference in Hong Kong in 2016, is not an attempt to 'update' what was never intended to be a genuine survey of Asia-Pacific security dynamics from a critical perspective. It is, rather, an attempt to once again illustrate the utility of critical approaches in making sense of, and potentially changing, security conceptions and practices in the region, through a disparate range of case studies. This introductory paper outlines the contours of the special issue while also examining the take up of critical approaches to security in scholarship in and about the region since 2007, and reflecting on the implications of changing regional security dynamics for the future of critical approaches to security. Ultimately, I suggest that the papers in this special issue, like the book a decade before, serve to illustrate the continued purchase of critical approaches in helping us understand, and potentially change, the way security is conceived and practiced in the Asia-Pacific.
Examining The International Relations Theory Of The Asia Pacific
Jurnal Mandala Jurnal Ilmu Hubungan Internasional, 2020
The question whether the IR theories used to analyse and study the Asian region particularly Asia Pacific is relevant or not remains heatedly debated within the field itself. Prominent scholars such as David C. Kang, Barry Buzan, and Peter Katszeinstein, and Amitav Acharya have argued through their works that the study of Asian region is often analysed by IR theories that is dominated by the Western knowledge and experiences. This essay hence would like to examine which theories are the most relevant and useful to depict and explain the dynamic of international relations in Asia, particularly the Asia Pacific. It argues that IR theories that cover the dynamics of international, historical and social relations of the Asian countries would likely the most useful and relevant to analysing the IR of the Asia-Pacific.
Olga Barbasiewicz, Marcin Grabowski, Ewa Trojnar (eds.), Security Dilemmas and Challenges in 21st Century Asia, Peter Lang Verlag, Berlin 2020, 2020
Security dynamics in Asia in the 21st century has been a widely discussed phenomenon. The rising power of China, its impact on neighboring countries and the international system, as well as its reception by the United States, have been of key importance to the development of security and international studies. As a result, this monograph analyzes the current security challenges in Asia in its broader i.e. Indo–Pacific meaning, aiming at capturing major shifts in the balance of power which involve regional actors. Through the lenses of IR theory, we have sought to provide insights into the consequences of the transition of power from the United States to China. By presenting case studies of regional security challenges from a multidimensional perspective, we analyze both the stages of the maturity of powers and their satisfaction within the existing system. Therefore we find it significant to discuss the role of regional actors who are hedging their bets between the United States and China, as well as different security dimensions and problems reshaping the regional architecture.
The Asia-Pacific in the U.S. National Security Calculus for a New Millenium
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