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| 1 |
ID:
176227
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article discusses how the ANZUS states of United States, Australia, and New Zealand that sit on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific, are increasingly using their armed forces to deliver Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response (HADR) as a way of engaging with the region. This is a neglected topic both in international relations and research on regional security in the Asia Pacific. This assessment reveals new developments in regional engagement between the ANZUS states and the Asia-Pacific. It finds that despite a shared language, broadly similar regional goals, and a need for interoperability; the ANZUS alliance itself does not appear to be driving closer military coordination on HADR. This article finds instead that HADR is being used to build new informal security networks that combine traditional and non-traditional security threats as a form of soft balancing against China.
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| 2 |
ID:
141654
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| Summary/Abstract |
“Soft balancing” has emerged as a way to reconcile realist theory with the lack of hard balancing behavior against US hegemony. Scholars continue, however, to disagree on the concept's utility and causes. Consistent with its realist roots, scholars have primarily focused on power imbalance and external threat to security as causes of soft balancing. This article analyzes Moldova's major foreign policy shift in the mid-2000s. It argues that this was a clear example of soft balancing and that it adds several important insights into the causes of soft balancing. While the power imbalance and external threat from Russia were persistent throughout Moldova's post-independence history, the country only adopted a soft balancing strategy once Russia posed a threat to the internal stability of the government and changes in EU policy created a permissive international environment for the strategy. Moreover, we argue that the domestic political environment played a key role in enabling the adoption of this strategy. This article therefore diversifies the analysis of the causes of soft balancing and provides a theoretical answer for the puzzle of Moldova's pro-Western turn in 2003.
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| 3 |
ID:
134079
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2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Why did the George W. Bush Administration change its policy toward North Korea from confrontation to accommodation during the second nuclear crisis? This article answers the question by analyzing how and why a coalition-including Bush Administration doves, China, Russia, South Korea and, at times, Japan and North Korea-worked together to overcome the reticence of Bush Administration hawks to engage with Pyongyang. Building on the soft balancing, bureaucratic politics, and transgovernmental coalitions literature, this article explains how the Six-Party Talks served this coalition to understand the extent to which they shared goals and policies. Aware of the divisions within the Bush Administration regarding policy toward North Korea, the five other parties to the talks were able to undermine the preferred policies of U.S. hawks while supporting the policies of doves. Thus, rather than determining Washington's behavior, this coalition laid the ground for U.S. officials supportive of accommodation to upload their preferences into official Bush Administration's policy. This article therefore also sheds light on how soft balancing can be used by third parties to influence the decision-making process in the United States.
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| 4 |
ID:
112423
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2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Recent literature on soft balancing predicts an increased occurrence of soft balancing against Washington at times when the United States acts unilaterally in foreign policy. At the same time, realist literature in IR suggests that interest violations should trigger opposition by states whose interests are being violated, unless there are unacceptable costs associated with soft balancing. In contrast to these views, this article demonstrates that interest violation and unilateralism, both individually and together, are weak predictors of soft balancing. Instead, based on the cases analyzed, I argue that soft balancing is most likely to occur when interest violations go hand in hand with perceptions of predatory intentions.
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| 5 |
ID:
090652
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
To what extent does anti-Americanism precipitate a decline in America's soft power? Nye postulates a negative relationship, presenting substantial implications for the U.S. national interest. In this paper, I test Nye's hypothesis through an examination of America's political influence within the United Nations. Using a fixed effects model, I regress voting alignment within the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on cross-national, aggregate public opinion toward the United States from 1985 to 2007. Controlling for foreign aid received and alliances with the United States, I find a statistically significant, positive relationship between favorable attitudes toward the United States and voting alignment within the UNGA on overall plenary votes and those votes for which the U.S. lobbies other UN-member states extensively. At the same time, controlling for temporal effects, states are far less supportive of U.S. interests in the UN throughout the tenure of President George W. Bush, capturing the effect of "anti-Bushism" in addition to anti-Americanism. The results of this study shed light on an emerging area of the literature that not only studies the sources of anti-Americanism, but also its consequences.
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| 6 |
ID:
165321
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this work we identify elements of diplomacy as mechanisms with which to sharpen our understanding of security studies and weigh some claims regarding conflict. Diplomatic considerations have long been out of fashion in the field of global politics, and we seek to re- introduce them. In so doing, we situate ourselves within the general context of Goddard and Nexon's reformulation of security studies. We then identify two controversial questions in the security studies literature and consider them with reference to diplomatic interactions. The first of these is the argument raised by Jack Levy and William R. Thompson suggesting that great sea powers generate different balance of power dynamics than great land powers. We find support for the majority of their suggestions. The second controversy, closely associated with the work of T.V. Paul, concerns ‘soft balancing’ and arose to help explain the lack of balancing behaviors relative to the unipolar position of the United States after 1989. Soft balancing is controversial in part because identifying it requires us to understand the specific intent of various foreign policy actions. We use diplomatic activities to address the problem of intent, and find support for soft balancing in the diplomatic record.
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| 7 |
ID:
187481
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article analyzes contemporary Turkey-European Union (EU) relations through the lenses of international relations (IR) theory. After providing a brief overview of the history of Turkey-EU relations, it focuses on the underlying dynamics of Turkey-EU relations in the post-2016 period. It makes a case that realism is better suited to explain the latest episodes in Turkey-EU relations. It specifically argues that balancing and neoclassical realism provide a more nuanced explanatory value as to why Turkey and the EU are going through a particularly tense period in their relationship. It also outlines global/regional factors as well as intervening national/domestic factors behind the rising tensions in Turkey’s relations with the EU.
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| 8 |
ID:
065314
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| 9 |
ID:
092041
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2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Waltzian analysis proceeds from the distinction between the ordering principles of anarchy and hierarchy. This raises the large question whether the introduction of pockets of 'authority' would represent a fundamental challenge to an anarchical international society. The article investigates this theme by exploring a putative institution of hegemony. It begins with a distinction between primacy and hegemony, and develops the idea of hegemony as a potentially legitimate practice of international society. Since most political systems are 'mixed', it then concludes that adoption of a hierarchical principle of hegemony is no more contradictory for international society than is its development of other such institutions. In common with much recent scholarship, it agrees that international society can function as a form of 'hierarchy under anarchy', within which hegemony could play its part. The article finally demonstrates what is distinctive to hegemonic behaviour, and suggests that practices such as soft balancing do not represent any form of balancing at all, but are better understood as attempts to institutionalise hegemony.
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| 10 |
ID:
103609
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| 11 |
ID:
188201
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| Summary/Abstract |
Japan’s threat perceptions toward China have hardened over the post-Cold War period. This led Tokyo to rely more on overt balancing strategies compared with engagement and hedging strategies. While hard balancing measures are widely discussed in the literature, little or no attention is paid to soft balancing. Though concerned about China’s strategic rise, Japan’s strategic options are limited by the entrenched normative constraints within the security policymaking structure. These conditions make soft balancing a critical and viable strategy for Japan. The prominence of soft balancing is illustrated by analyzing Japan’s response to China’s widening influence in Southeast Asia, primarily focusing on two areas – East Asian multilateralism and the South China Sea territorial disputes. Empirically, this paper offers a more nuanced analysis of Japan’s response to China’s strategic rise; and theoretically, explains the way Japan’s case strengthens the conceptual utility of soft balancing through the incorporation of a normative perspective.
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| 12 |
ID:
097227
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| 13 |
ID:
144778
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| Summary/Abstract |
Both the EU and NATO have greatly expanded efforts to address the frozen conflict in Transnistria since 2003. These efforts by and large fall neatly into the category of ‘soft balancing’ actions against Russian influence in the conflict and in Moldova more generally. Given that soft balancing is normally seen as a strategy undertaken by relatively weak actors vis-à-vis a global or regional hegemon, this behavior is puzzling. The actions of these institutions demonstrate that soft balancing is a logical strategy for stronger actors when the conflict is not as salient as for the weaker actor. The EU and NATO’s desire to resolve the conflict is not salient enough to warrant a costlier hard power strategy. Recent developments in Ukraine also demonstrate the limitations of this strategy. Specifically, the application of this soft power has done little to change the incentives for separatist leaders or their Russian backers, meaning they have little ability to resolve the conflict. They have also fallen short of creating a permanent pro-Western consensus in Moldova. They do, however, augment Moldova’s ability to adapt to the challenges posed by the conflict and provide a paper wall against more aggressive Russian ambitions in the region.
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| 14 |
ID:
154641
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines the place that “realism” occupies in the debates over International Relations theory and Canadian Foreign Policy. Argued here is the claim that realism is far from being a dominant paradigm in the Canadian academy, which in itself is hardly a surprising finding. However, realism’s relative absence from the scholarship on Canadian Foreign Policy disguises a more important finding: there has been a fairly longstanding Canadian approach to foreign policy analysis bearing many of the hallmarks of structural-realist formulations, an approach that puts great emphasis on Canada’s “relative capability” as a “middle power” in the international system. Although few in the country would embrace the realist label explicitly, many have heeded the structural-realist injunction that foreign policy analysis should start with an assessment of the country’s relative standing in the international pecking order. In the Canadian case, this empirical emphasis on relative capability has become suffused with normative significance of a decidedly “non-realist” kidney, summed up in the disputed concept “middlepowermanship.” The article concludes that, to the extent realism is to continue to be a presence in Canadian Foreign Policy scholarship, it will likely be the non-structural variant known today as “neoclassical realism,” in no small measure due to the logical inconsistencies of the earlier, structuralist, paradigm.
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| 15 |
ID:
162275
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| Publication |
New Haven, Yale University Press, 2018.
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| Description |
xv, 239p.hbk
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| Standard Number |
9780300228489
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Copies: C:1/I:0,R:0,Q:0
Circulation
| Accession# | Call# | Current Location | Status | Policy | Location |
| 059546 | 327/PAU 059546 | Main | On Shelf | General | |
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| 16 |
ID:
155436
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| Summary/Abstract |
The existing accounts about the China-led multilateral development bank—the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)—have focused on the USA’s policy concerns and the economic and commercial reasons for China having established it. Two deeper questions are left unaddressed: Was there any strategic rationale for China to initiate a new multilateral development bank and, if so, how effective is China’s strategy? From a neorealist balance-of-power perspective, this article argues that China has felt threatened by the Obama administration’s rebalance to the Asia-Pacific strategy. In response, China is opting for a soft-balancing policy to carve out a regional security space in Eurasia in order to mitigate the threat coming from its east. China’s material power, premised on the fact that the country is a huge domestic market and flush with cash, has proved irresistible for Asian states, with the exception of Japan, to be enticed away from the USA. On the one hand, this article adds weight to the claim that although the USA remains the pre-eminent military power in the Asia-Pacific, it has fallen into a relative decline in regional economic governance; on the other, China’s soft balancing has its own limitations in forming like-minded partnerships with, and offering security guarantees to, AIIB members. A China-led regional order is yet to have arrived, even with the AIIB.
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| 17 |
ID:
140919
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| Summary/Abstract |
In the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, scholars of international relations debated how to best characterize the rising tide of global opposition. The concept of “soft balancing” emerged as an influential, though contested, explanation of a new phenomenon in a unipolar world: states seeking to constrain the ability of the United States to deploy military force by using multinational organizations, international law, and coalition building. Soft balancing can also be observed in regional unipolar systems. Multinational archival research reveals how Argentina, Mexico, and other Latin American countries responded to expanding U.S. power and military assertiveness in the early twentieth century through coordinated diplomatic maneuvering that provides a strong example of soft balancing. Examination of this earlier case makes an empirical contribution to the emerging soft-balancing literature and suggests that soft balancing need not lead to hard balancing or open conflict.
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| 18 |
ID:
133740
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Since the event popularly termed the 'Arab spring' and the changing balance of power in the Middle East, where China has economic interests, there has been a conspicuous balancing behaviour against the United States, the sole superpower. This article discusses whether the Chinese and Russian vetoes on Syria can be interpreted as a potential threat to counterbalance American moves in world politics, particularly in the Middle East. After abstaining on the no-fly zone over Libya, China vetoed thrice on the Syrian crisis. Beijing used its position to frame the agenda of the Security Council and to indirectly challenge US objectives in the region. China's diplomatic cooperation and coordination with Russia displays their mutual determination to check the US' moves in United Nations Security Council (UNSC) debates on the Syrian crisis. Yet, China is still very cautious about confronting the US directly or antagonising it, realising that it is still much weaker than Washington, and would gain nothing from such actions. Therefore, the Chinese strategy is to not engage in hard balancing behaviour, but in soft balancing which allows for the creation of strategic relationships through which hard balancing can occur in the future.
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| 19 |
ID:
112633
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| Publication |
2012.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article examines Chinese and Russian foreign policy and military strategy from the theoretical standpoint of soft balancing. Analysis of their thinking indicates that both seek to offset US military superiority without engaging American power directly. To that end, Chinese and Russian strategists have adopted 'soft' or 'normative' power assets as strategic capabilities in their military and foreign policy. Alternative norms, such as the concept of 'sovereign democracy', allow China and Russia to deliberately ignore human rights issues in order to achieve diplomatic advantage with respect to the United States. The two powers have institutionalized these norms within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which they use to counterbalance US interests in Central Asia.
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| 20 |
ID:
144079
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| Summary/Abstract |
What motivates the United States, the world’s most powerful country, to seek multilateral approval from the United Nations or NATO for its military interventions? Drawing on interviews with top-level US policymakers and combining process tracing with a structured-focused comparison of several cases, this article reveals that American leaders do not value multilateral approval primarily to avert negative issue linkage, or ‘soft balancing’ in other policy domains. Instead, they are motivated by narrower concerns. Their main goal is to facilitate sustained military and financial burden sharing on the prospective intervention, in the expectation that this will assuage congressional concerns about resource costs, reducing the risk that Congress might withdraw its support once American troops are deployed. The article therefore demonstrates that (1) US policymakers worry less about issue linkage than many International Relations theorists, as policymakers are confident that overall, US power inclines other countries to bandwagon with the United States, and (2) contrary to widespread belief, executive-branch concerns about congressional opposition do significantly influence US military intervention decision-making.
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