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Explaining the difference between Australia-Japan and Japan-ROK security cooperation The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-09-05 Tomohiko Satake
Despite a clear and common threat from North Korea, why has the security cooperation between Japan and South Korea been less developed than the security cooperation between Australia and Japan? Thi...
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METI and Japanese scramble: re-definition of Japan’s African policy under the second Abe administration and future of African summit diplomacy The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-08-31 Tomohiro Hosoi
During the Second Abe Administration (2012-2020), Japan intensified its efforts to strengthen economic ties with Africa. This paper explores the reasons behind this shift and its implications for J...
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Rising sun in the cyber domain: Japan’s strategic shift toward active cyber defense The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-30 Dai Mochinaga
This paper provides an in-depth analysis of Japan’s evolving cyber defense capabilities and explores its future challenges. National security has transformed in the twenty first century, with cyber...
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Malaysia’s ICT sector policymaking: toward a developmental network state The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-29 Greg Felker
The history of Malaysia’s efforts to develop an internationally competitive information and communication technology (ICT) sector demonstrates how state interventionism has shaped its development t...
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Looking under the hood of joint naval exercises: motives and perceived benefits for Japan The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-02 Ash Rossiter, Yee-Kuang Heng, Brendon J. Cannon
Joint naval exercises (JNEs), an increasingly prominent sub-set of joint military exercises (JMEs) between states, vary across a range of dimensions. Yet insufficient attention has been given to co...
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Responding to the crisis: Japan’s changing foreign policy and ODA to Ukraine (2014–2023) The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-07-01 Kamila Szczepanska, Olga Barbasiewicz, Viktoriya Voytsekhovska
The Russian aggression on Ukraine (2022) has marked a significant critical juncture for Japan’s foreign and security policies, and Japanese government has deployed a multitude of political, economi...
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Pivotal power of small states to save the international liberal economic order: the case from East Asia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-06-28 Trissia Wijaya, Jessica C. Liao, Ewon Baik, Saori N. Katada
Small- and medium-sized states acquire significant influence when regional and global orders are in flux, as in times of power transition. We have observed such dynamics especially since the 2008 G...
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LGBT rights claiming and political participation in Southeast Asia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-06-24 Anthony J. Langlois
In this paper, I read the creation of the ASEAN human rights regime, the development of SOGIESC rights claiming (where this denotes sexual orientation, gender identity & expression, and sex charact...
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Cooperative, competitive and responsible: the visualization of China as a major power and its global roles in the CCTV documentary Daguo Waijiao The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-28 Elizaveta Priupolina, Tanja Eckstein, Nele Noesselt
This paper contributes to our understanding of China as a major/great power by analysing visual narratives in the Chinese Central Television (CCTV) political documentary Daguo Waijao (Major Country...
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Bamboo in a storm: the Russia-Ukraine war and Vietnam’s foreign policy (2022–2024) The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-05-15 Alexander L. Vuving
This article examines the strategic impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on Vietnam’s foreign policy and Vietnam’s responses to the war. It argues that although the war has triggered diverse, even oppo...
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Correction notice The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-04-24
Published in The Pacific Review (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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Domestic imperative of the Philippines’ South China Sea policy: personality-driven policymaking and constant shifts between China and the United States The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Phuong Ly Nguyen, Sow Keat Tok
This article aims to explain the oscillations of the Philippines’ South China Sea policy vis-à-vis China between accommodation and confrontation from 1991 to 2022. It argues that the Philippines’ p...
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Why Russia has botched diplomacy with Japan: comparisons of 2013–23 and the late 1980s The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Gilbert, Rozman
The prevailing narrative from the Brezhnev era to the present holds that Moscow’s relations with Tokyo failed to achieve a breakthrough due to a territorial dispute lingering from 1956. Japan had d...
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Map evidence for the Philippines’ territorial claim in the South China Sea: a historical, cartographical and legal analysis The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Kan Wang
Based on international law and practices, a map by itself does not constitute an independent territorial title and has no independent probative value in territorial disputes. Regarding maps with in...
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Foreign policy consequences of democratic backsliding: the case of the Comfort Women Agreement in 2015 The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Byunghwan Son
Recent studies have documented the profound effects that democratic backsliding generates on various realms of governance. However, foreign policies remain an exception in this trend despite the no...
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Understanding region formation through proximity, interests, and identity: debunking the Indo-Pacific as a viable regional demarcation The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Michal Kolmaš, Guangyu Qiao-Franco, Aleš Karmazin
The Indo-Pacific region, linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans through Southeast Asia, is becoming increasingly significant in academic discourse and global politics. The geopolitical background of...
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The varieties of financial statecraft and middle powers: assessing South Korea’s strategic involvement in regional financial cooperation The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Yaechan Lee, William W. Grimes, William N. Kring
In recent years, the financial statecraft literature has expanded from a focus on great powers to encompass the behavior of emerging powers. While offering an important corrective, the literature d...
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A poliheuristic analysis of South Korea’s responses towards North Korea’s missile tests The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-12-16 Pelin Dengiz
The North Korean missile program has gained undeniable momentum in the twenty first century, highly sensitive to dialogues within the region. One could argue South Korea is accustomed to these repe...
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North Korean climate diplomacy: engagement, priorities, and opportunities for collaboration The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-09 Cesare M. Scartozzi, Gordon Kang
This study investigates North Korea’s climate diplomacy by analyzing a comprehensive dataset of 39 policy documents and 93,439 news articles through content and sentiment analysis. The research aim...
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Middle powers as ‘peacemaking entrepreneurs’ in Myanmar’s peace process 2011–2021 The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-10-03 Chiraag Roy, Anthony Ware, Costas Laoutides
Middle powers were visible actors in Myanmar’s peace-donor landscape, from the beginning of that country’s peace process in 2011 until the 2021 coup. Considering Myanmar’s longstanding dependency o...
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The security policy community and the consensus on the US–Japan alliance: the role of think tanks, experts and the alliance managers The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-09-11 Beata Bochorodycz
The article addresses the issue of continuity of the consensus on the US–Japan alliance in the post-Cold War era, by employing the concepts of a security policy community (SPC) that comprises both ...
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Beyond the ‘North’-’South’ impasse: self-effacing Japan, emancipatory movements of the Global South and West-Engineered aid architecture The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Sabina Insebayeva
The article has three objectives. The first is to reconsider the popular taken-for-granted categories of ‘Global North’/’Global South’ and ‘Northern’ donors/’Southern’ providers and proposes an alt...
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Deter together or deter separately?: time horizons and peacetime alliance cohesion of the US-Japan and US-ROK alliances The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Do Young Lee
What explains the degree of peacetime alliance cohesion? Why do some alliances maintain cohesion regarding common external threats while others do not? I argue that the interaction of allies’ threa...
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The Technopolitics of THAAD in East Asia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-07-22 Daniel Connolly
The decision by South Korean authorities to deploy a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile battery in 2016 unleashed a storm of protest, both domestically and internationally. Attempt...
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The Indonesian state and the strategic use of foreign capital The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-04 James Guild
Abstract Indonesia is a net debtor country, meaning typically more investment flows into Indonesia than goes out. This is an important driver of growth, but can also create strategic and economic liabilities as foreign creditors establish claims on Indonesian assets. This paper uses the concept of defensive economic statecraft to explain how the Indonesian state has taken actions to mitigate these
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Sovereignty scripts and regional governance: ASEAN’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Kilian Spandler, Julia Hartelius, Alva Monti, Fredrik Söderbaum
This article seeks to advance our understanding of the role of sovereignty for regional governance, with a focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). We argue that important insig...
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Between market and state: the evolution of Australia’s economic statecraft The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Victor A. Ferguson, Darren J. Lim, Benjamin Herscovitch
Abstract For nearly four decades, Australia’s domestic and international economic policies were anchored by the promotion of open, transparent, and rules-based market exchange. This was considered the best way to increase both Australia’s prosperity and its security, and that belief guided Canberra’s approach to economic statecraft. However, emerging concerns about the vulnerabilities arising from
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Not our war. What ASEAN governments’ responses to the Ukraine war tell us about Southeast Asia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Frederick Kliem
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned by governments of the ‘political West’. Most other states have been either neutral or even Russia-leaning in this war. Southeast Asia is no ex...
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Managing economic statecraft via multilateral agreements: the roles of ASEAN member states in shaping Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-04-10 Kaewkamol Pitakdumrongkit
Abstract Economic statecraft (ES) has been playing an increased role in affecting the international relations. While armed conflicts decline, states have been weaponising trade, investment, and other economic ties to gain leverage over their counterparts. In the contemporary world, ES is not only used to galvanise countries’ influence in specific issue areas but also part of their grand strategy to
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Taiwan–US nonproliferation cooperation: the case of North Korea and the influence of affected industries The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Yi-hao Su
Why does the United States find it challenging to obtain third-party commitment to its nonproliferation policies? Although US pressure is necessary to trigger implementation, I contend that states ...
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Territorial disputes, the role of leaders and the impact of Quad: a triangular explanation of China-India border escalations The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-03-01 Ghulam Ali
This article provides a triangular explanation of the recent surge in China-Indian border escalations. It argues that although escalations stemmed from the disputed borders (the first factor), two ...
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Why do states engage in cybersecurity capacity-building assistance? Evidence from Japan The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Benjamin Bartlett
In 2009, Japan began to engage in cybersecurity capacity-building assistance in Southeast Asia. Based on existing literature, there are three plausible motives for Japan to have done so. The first ...
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The UK’s new free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific: how closely is it adopting US trade regulation? The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-26 Christopher M. Dent
In a global economy and system increasingly defined by new developments and complexities in trade, whose rules and regulations govern that trade matter. The UK has embarked on a new post-Brexit tra...
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Using COVID-19 as opportunity: the role of the AIIB’s leadership in its strategic adaptation to the pandemic The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Giuseppe Zaccaria
The COVID-19 pandemic led to a steep rise in demand for COVID-recovery lending and a decrease in capacity for infrastructure borrowing in many countries struggling to cope with its economic effects...
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The spiral model, scope conditions, and contestation in the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2023-01-20 Alan Collins, Edmund Bon Tai Soon
In 2009 ASEAN established a human rights body—the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR)—and tasked it with promoting and protecting human rights in Southeast Asia within ASEAN’...
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Tilting the playing field: government strategies to bolster control over policy paths in Japan and South Korea The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-12-01 Max Nagel
Following the financial crises in the late 1990s, governments in Japan and South Korea embraced institutional change that corresponded with Western neoliberal norms. These changes prompted some obs...
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Selling The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-23 Weiqing Song, Joseph Ching Velasco
This paper examines Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte government (2016–2022). During this period, Philippine foreign policy is widely acknowledged to have undergone dramatic shifts, with ...
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The transformation of asymmetry: the evolution of Philippine and Vietnamese South China Sea policies and the asymmetry of attention The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-10-10 Guangyi Pan, Thu Hien Phan
Most relations among states are asymmetric due to a disparity of capacities. This does not mean the strong can crush the weak at will, as the cost could outweigh the gain. If the weaker side sees a...
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The agency-structure problem in peacebuilding: constructing a niche in the Korean conflict The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-29 Dong Jin Kim, Youngchul Chung
The structural dynamics of the Korean conflict has evolved not only with the inter-Korean rivalry, but also the geopolitics of great power rivalries. The conflict structure was reinforced going thr...
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Elite role conceptions and Indonesia’s agency in the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific: reclaiming leadership The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-23 Pia Dannhauer
In June 2019, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) issued a shared regional vision, the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). The document ended a debate about how to respond to t...
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The agency of secondary states in order transition in the Indo-Pacific The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-22 Jaeyoung Kim
The liberal international order (LIO) is now in a complex crisis. Its legitimacy and sustainability are put to the test with the growth of deglobalization forces, the rise of emerging powers dissat...
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Shades of grey: riskification and hedging in the Indo-Pacific The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-09-09 Cheng-Chwee Kuik
This essay unpacks the hedging behavior of small and secondary states by focusing on Southeast Asian responses to the intense US-China rivalry and the emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialog...
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Cybersecurity in the U.S.-Philippine alliance: mission seep The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-08-21 Gregory H. Winger
This study examines the integration of cybersecurity within the U.S.-Philippine alliance. The growth of new forms of international conflict, like cybersecurity, occur below the threshold of a tradi...
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Indigenous peoples activism on climate change in Southeast Asia: the role of regional scalar bridging organizations The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-07-12 Kim D. Reimann
Indigenous peoples in Southeast Asia have organized on issues that affect their rights at the local, national, regional and global level. This article argues that one important component of the ris...
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Of constraints and opportunities. Dependent asymmetry in China-Myanmar relations, 2011–2021 The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-06-30 Simone Dossi, Giuseppe Gabusi
This article argues that a peculiar pattern of dependent asymmetry – ‘dual dependence’, i.e. a combination of internal and external dependence – has come to characterize the structure of China-Myan...
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Middle powers amid Sino-U.S. rivalry: assessing the ‘good regional citizenship’ of Australia and Indonesia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Sarah Teo
Abstract This paper argues that amid intensifying Sino-U.S. rivalry, middle powers in East Asia have contributed towards regional peaceful change through the exercise of good regional citizenship, a concept which draws on and modifies from the more commonly known good international citizenship which is closely associated with middle powers. Specifically, good regional citizenship involves proactively
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Realism, liberalism and regional order in East Asia: toward a hybrid approach The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 T. V. Paul
Abstract East Asia offers a fertile ground for applying dominant theoretical perspectives in International Relations and understanding their relevance and limitations. As this region has seen much conflict and cooperation historically and is re-emerging as a key theater of great power competition in the 21st century even when states maintain high levels of economic interactions, our understanding of
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Keeping the peace in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the quest for positive peace The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-16 Mely Caballero-Anthony, Ralf Emmers
Abstract Southeast Asia has gone through a remarkable transformation in recent decades and seen peaceful change since the end of the Cold War era despite great power interference and rivalry and ongoing territorial disputes including the South China Sea conflict. The region has transformed its image from the so-called Balkans of the East in the 1960s and 1970s to an economically competitive and peaceful
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Special issue on the ‘sources of peace and peaceful change in East Asia’1 The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Bhubhindar Singh
Abstract East Asia is usually associated with war and conflict. This applies to its historical past, as well as to the present post-Cold War period. In fact, this pessimism on the region has hardened with the worsening structural US-China competition since 2010. Challenging this prevailing view, this special issue argues that the concepts of peace and peaceful change are critical elements to explain
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Charting the evolution of the ASEAN’s consensus on human rights, 2007–2021 The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Atena S. Feraru
This article provides a comprehensive understanding of the roles and functions of ASEAN’s human rights regime by building on widely documented, consistent findings relating to the purpose of the as...
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China-Russia technology cooperation in space: Mutually needed or mutually exclusive? The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Qisong He
Abstract As far as space technology cooperation is concerned, China and Russia took the Ukraine crisis in 2014 as the dividing line. The content and methods of cooperation between the two countries have undergone significant changes, making the cooperation from simple to complicated. Meanwhile, the space technology cooperation between China and Russia will definitely shape the structure of power in
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The shift to consensus democracy and limits of institutional design in Asia The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-10 Yuko Kasuya, Benjamin Reilly
Abstract A ‘majoritarian turn’ identified by scholars of Asian democracy in the 1990s saw the rise of mixed-member majoritarian electoral systems and more centripetal party competition across both Northeast and Southeast Asia. In this paper, we argue that since the 2000s, the institutional pendulum has shifted, with more consensual approaches to democracy appearing to better represent key identity
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Arm, to disarm: North Korea’s Cold War anti-nuclearism The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-02-04 Soon-Ok Shin
Abstract North Korea is a de facto nuclear weapon state, having undertaken six tests between 2006 and 2017. Throughout a series of nuclear crises, since the early 1990s, Pyongyang has not only emphasised its sovereign right to explore nuclear options as an inevitable response to a hostile United States, but has at the same time consistently embraced an anti-nuclear stance, maintaining a commitment
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Japan and the new Indo-Pacific order: the rise of an entrepreneurial power The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2022-01-31 H. D. P. Envall, Thomas S. Wilkins
Abstract This article revisits the conceptualisation of (regional) order in International Relations (IR) theory to illuminate key aspects of Japan’s order-building role in the Indo-Pacific. The framework is based upon a multi-dimensional understanding of regional order-building allowing for an examination of Japan’s vision for a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) policy ‘vision’, the challenges it
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“Patriarchal reset” in the asia pacific during COVID-19: the impacts on women’s security and rights The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-12-06 Melissa Johnston, Sara E. Davies, Jacqui True, Yolanda Riveros-Morales
Abstract COVID-19 has disrupted social, economic and political life across the Asia Pacific region, with particularly deleterious impacts on women. Rather than equitably affecting all, COVID-19 has brought about a “patriarchal reset”, exacerbating women’s health and care labour burdens and heightening the physical violence against women and other threats to women’s human rights. This paper examines
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From Kyoto to Glasgow: is Japan a climate leader? The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-25 Julie Gilson
Abstract The term ‘climate leadership’ became popular in the 1990s, in relation to international negotiations aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental mitigations. Since that time, international attention – borne out by scientific study and a rapidly changing planetary climate - has shifted from global warming, the ozone layer and greenhouse gas emissions, to energy production
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Myanmar’s struggle for survival: vying for autonomy and agency The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-03 M. L. Pinitbhand Paribatra
Abstract Despite terminological variations used to characterize Myanmar’s foreign policy within the extant literature, in practice Myanmar has adopted a foreign policy of neutrality and non-alignment since independence to avoid being drawn into global and regional post-World War II power struggles. As realist perspectives suggest, Myanmar’s behavior is a rational choice derived from inherent limitations
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Reflection and implication: Methodology and theorising The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-03 Yong-Soo Eun
Abstract This article elaborates on the following two questions and their implications. First, how can we as analysts offer compelling explanations for weak states’ agency and behaviours in the current global political and economic environments marked by multiplicity and fluidity? Second, what are the major causal factors that enable or influence weak actors’ agency, and under what conditions is their
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Unpacking the dynamics of weak states’ agency The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-03 Yong-Soo Eun, Amitav Acharya, Chanintira na Thalang
Abstract This introductory article provides rationales and contextual background for the special issue which examines how weak states in Asia actualise and exercise their agency in the twenty-first century regional or global environments. The article opens with a consideration of why attention is drawn to the agency of the weak. Weak states are often treated as ‘objects’ of international politics rather
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Cambodia’s multifaceted foreign policy and agency in the making The Pacific Review (IF 2.3) Pub Date : 2021-11-02 Vannarith Chheang
Abstract Amidst the evolving multifaceted and decentralized world, weak state actors are compelled to regularly and robustly revisit and readjust their foreign policy policies to meet national interests. Although Cambodia has limited material resources and faces constant foreign intervention, it does not mean that Cambodia is not entirely without agency. Within the context of rising fluidity and multiplicity