The discipline of international relations offers much insight into why violent power transitions occur, yet there have been few substantive examinations of why and how peaceful changes happen in world politics. This work is the first comprehensive treatment of that subject. The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Change in International Relations provides a thorough examination of research on the problem of change in the international arena and the reasons why change happens peacefully at...

Security Strategies of Middle Powers in the Asia Pacific examines what drives the different regional security strategies of four middle powers in the Asia Pacific: Australia, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia.Drawing on the extant middle power literature, the authors argue that the regional security strategies of middle powers could take two forms, namely, functional or normative. A functional strategy means that the middle power targets its resources to address a specif...

The security issues confronting Asia are both complex and diverse. Given the increasing trend towards an expanding security agenda beyond the military dimension of inter-state relations, this volume provides an extensive study of emerging non-traditional challenges to this region. New realities and new challenges have come to the fore including environmental degradation, illegal immigration, infectious diseases, transnational crime, poverty and underdevelopment. Drawing upon the concepts o...

In this book, Emmers addresses the key question: to what extent may the balance of power play a part in such cooperative security arrangements and in the calculations of the participants of ASEAN and the ART? He investigates the role of the power balance in detailed examinations of the creation of the forum, ASEAN's response to the Indochina confli

Geopolitics is a crucial element in understanding international relations in East Asia, with major and medium powers competing for influence. This book examines geopolitics in East Asia, focusing in particular on its major, contentious maritime territorial disputes. It looks in particular detail at the overlapping claims between Japan, China and Taiwan over the Senkaku/Diao yu Islands in the East China Sea as well as the Paracel Islands claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam and the Spratly...

The South China Sea has long been regarded as a major source of tension and instability in East Asia. Managing the risk of possible conflict over disputed claims in the South China Sea has been a significant challenge for regional relations. This book explores international politics and security in the South China Sea. It outlines the history of the South China Sea disputes, and the efforts that have been made to resolve these, assessing the broader strategic significance of the region for...

Michael Leifer, who died in 2001, was one of the leading scholars of Southeast Asian international relations. He was hugely influential through his extensive writings and his contacts with people in government and business in the region.In this book, many of Leifer’s students, colleagues and friends come together to explore the key themes of his work on Southeast Asia, including the notion of ‘order’, security, maritime law and foreign policy. The book concludes with an overall ass...

On the 8th of August 2017, ASEAN will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. ASEAN is of great importance to Singapore, the region and the world.In 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN in short, was founded by five countries in Southeast Asia which had just gained independence from their former colonial masters, united by a determination for the region to live in peace and stability. Singapore was one of the five founding members of ASEAN, together with Indon...

In this third edition of Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, Amitav Acharya offers a comprehensive and critical account of the evolution of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) norms and the viability of the ASEAN way of conflict management. Building on the framework from the first edition, which inspired the establishment of the ASEAN Political-Security community, this new edition has been extensively updated and revised based on new primary sources...

The countries of Southeast Asia continue to change, evolve and chart courses that sometimes leave outside observers puzzled. Politics in Contemporary Southeast Asia thoroughly assesses the political challenges and changes faced by the countries of Southeast Asia in the 21st century. Focusing on political processes throughout, Kingsbury introduces readers to the challenges of representation and accountability of the regional governments, degrees of good governance and transparency,...

This book provides an explanation of Chinese policy towards the South China Sea, and argues that this has been sculpted by the changing dynamics of the law of the sea in conjunction with regional geopolitical flux.The past few decades have witnessed a bifurcated trend in China’s management of territorial disputes. Over the years, while China gradually calmed and settled most land-border disputes with its neighbors, disputes on the ocean frontier continued to simmer in a seething ca...

Since the early 1990s and the end of the Cold War, the implications of China's rising power have come to dominate the security agenda of the Asia-Pacific region. This book is the first to comprehensively chart the development of Southeast Asia’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from 1949 to 2010, detailing each of the eleven countries’ ties to the PRC and showing how strategic concerns associated with China's regional posture have been a significant factor in shaping the...