Browsing by Author "Southgate, L."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    The Asia Pivot as a Strategy of Foreign Policy: A Source of Peace or a Harbinger of Conflict?
    (International Studies Association, 2017-06) Southgate, L.
    The Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot strategy has sought to strengthen the United States’ (US) bilateral security alliances in Asia, intensify working relationships with regional states and the US, and boost regional trade and investment. This paper investigates whether the Obama administration’s Asia Pivot has fulfilled its strategy of enhancing peace and cooperation in the Pacific, or whether it has in fact magnified the potential for regional conflict. In doing so, it seeks an answer to the following, interrelated questions: What have been the costs and benefits of the Asia Pivot strategy for the United States and regional actors? Is the Asia Pivot strategy an example of foreign policy success, or failure? For the purpose of this paper, foreign policy is understood as a multidimensional concept that takes into account degree of goal attainment, the costs to the user; the costs to the target; and an identification of who has most at stake in the issue. In doing so it will argue that the costs of the Asia Pivot strategy have largely outweighed the benefits, thus having a negative impact on peace in the Asia Pacific.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Enter the vanguard state: reinterpreting ASEAN’s response to the South China Sea issue
    (Sage, 2016-08-01) Southgate, L.; Khoo, N.
    This article analyzes the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s (ASEAN) interactions with China over the South China Sea issue since the end of the Cold War. A neorealist understanding of ASEAN’s international relations is advanced. This approach highlights the degree of security maximizing interest convergence between key ASEAN actors and an extra-regional actor, the United States, to explain the varying outcomes in the empirical record. Our approach is contrasted to alternatives in the existing literature that either overemphasize or underemphasize ASEAN’s autonomy in regional politics.