CIAO DATE: 10/2011
Volume: 11, Issue: 3
September 2011
International relations studies in China: history, trends, and prospects (PDF)
David Shambaugh
International relations (IR) studies in China have developed considerably over the past three decades. The field is now well established with 49 degree-granting institutions, as well as a series of ‘think tanks’ that produce policy-related analyses of international issues. Recent survey research of publication trends in the field reveals a significant new diversity of research subject areas, with an increased emphasis on topics associated with Western ‘liberal’ IR theory and international political economy, while at the same time revealing a tenacity of ‘realist’ topics such as major power relations. While the quantitative dimensions of the field have grown dramatically – institutions, faculty, publications – the overall quality of research remains very uneven across China and generally weak when compared internationally. This article surveys the historical development of the field, summarizes the current state of the field, and identifies challenges and opportunities for future development
Institutions and the great power bargain in East Asia: ASEAN's limited 'brokerage' role (PDF)
Evelyn Goh
This article argues that in the post-Cold War strategic transition in East Asia, ASEAN has helped to create a minimalist normative bargain among the great powers in the region. The regional norms propagated through the ‘ASEAN way’, emphasizing sovereignty, non-intervention, consensus, inclusion, and informality were extremely important in the initial stages of bringing the great powers – especially China and the United States – to the table in the immediate post-Cold War period. During this time, ASEAN helped to institutionalize power relations legitimizing the role of the great powers as well as the ‘voice’ of smaller states in regional security management
Beyond securitization: explaining the scope of security policy in Southeast Asia (PDF)
Lee Jones
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
Securitizing trade: the case of the Korea–US free trade agreement (PDF)
Min Gyo Koo, Yul Sohn
The Korea– US free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) of 2007 clearly shows how countries simultaneously pursue economic benefits and strategic interests in trade negotiations. This study argues that the surprise launch and the successful conclusion of the KORUS FTA illustrate the joint efforts by the United States and the Republic of Korea to re-securitize their bilateral economic relations. Security and strategic calculations held by top policy-makers on both sides catalyzed the offi- cial launch of FTA negotiations by removing a number of longstanding trade irritants such as Korea’s screen quotas and ban on US beefs. At the post-negotiation stage, however, the lack of bipartisanship— particularly in the United States—to provide trade liberalization for their allies in favor of their own broader strategic interests has led to the legislative stalemate of executive efforts at re-securitization of trade relations.
Investigating macroscopic transitions in Japanese foreign policy using quantitative text analysis† (PDF)
Takafumi Suzuki
This study introduces new quantitative text analysis methods into foreign policy analysis. Quantitative text analysis in the social sciences is currently aimed in two directions, namely (a) more systematic analysis using larger amounts of data sets and (b) more detailed analysis using linguistic knowledge. Our methods, by using recent techniques in natural language processing, integrate these two different trends, and achieve more systematic but detailed analysis. We apply our methods to 147 Diet speeches of Japanese prime ministers, and shed new light on the character of Japanese foreign policy. This study makes a methodological contribution to foreign policy analysis and a substantial contribution to the study of Japanese foreign policy
Japan's reconceptualization of national security: the impact of globalization (PDF)
Bhubhindar Singh, Philip Shetler-Jones
Japan has steadily extended its military reach from a domestic zone of defense against territorial invasion in the late 1950s, through regional security policy in the late 1970s to what has now become a globally scaled military role. This re-expansion is perceived by some as evidence of revived militaristic ambitions, and by others as subservience to the US global strategy. However, taking the cue from Japan’s 2004 National Defence Programme Guideline (New Taiko¯), this paper assesses the role globalization has played in this territorial expansion. The impact of globalization is evident in the double expansion of Japan’s national security conception in geographical terms and self-defense forces roles in global security
Cooperation, Competition, and the Search for Community: Asia's New Multilateralism (PDF)
Sheldon W. Simon
A successful edited volume not only requires that the editors recruit qualified specialists for each chapter but also that those editors integrate the separate analyses so that the book displays a coherence beyond the sum of its individual parts. Michael Green and Bates Gill have succeeded admirably on both dimensions: enlisting renowned Asian country specialists and experts on the various types of cooperation that characterize Asian multilateralism. Moreover, their Introduction illuminates how these types relate to one another. Over the past 45 years, Asia has experienced a plethora of multilateral political, economic, and security arrangements – some long-lived and well-institutionalized (ASEAN) and others formed to deal with a specific situation such as the Core Group that provided aid to those countries devastated by the December 2004 tsunami. There is considerable overlap in states’ memberships among these bodies, though they tend to group in a Southeast Asian-led formation centered in ASEAN and a Northeast Asian coterie dealing with North Korea in the Six-Party Talks
Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security: From Pacifism to Realism? (PDF)
Wilhelm M. Vosse
Until the Japanese government's decision to participate in the so-called
war on terror by first sending maritime self-defense force (SDF) ships to
refueling missions in the Indian Ocean in 2001, and then by dispatching
ground self-defense force troops to Southern Iraq, the overall view of
Japanese security policy had been that it was constrained by article 9 as
well as strong public support for perhaps pacifist attitudes. However,
these developments and, so it seemed, fundamental changes in Japanese
security posture after 9/11 have been taken as evidence that either antimilitarism was vanning, or that the Japanese government, particularly
under Prime Minister Koizumi, had been successful in convincing the
Japanese public that it was the time for a fundamental shift in Japan's security policy (Green, 2001; Hughes, 2009; Samuels, 2007).