Order Contestation And Ontological Security Seeking In The South China Sea

This book examines the South China Sea territorial disputes from the perspective of international order. The authors argue that both China and the US are attempting to impose their respective preferred orders to the region and that the observed disputes are due to the clash of two competing order-building projects. Ordering the maritime space is essential for these two countries to validate their national identities and to achieve ontological security. Because both are ontological security-seeking states, this imperative gives them little room for striking a grand bargain between them. The book focuses on how China and the US engage in practices and discourses that build, contest, and legitimise the two major ordering projects they promote in the region. It concludes that China must act in its legitimation strategy in accordance with contemporary publicly accepted norms and rules to create a legitimate maritime order, while the US should support ASEAN in devising a multilateral resolution of the disputes.

Strategic Narratives, Ontological Security and Global Policy provides a pathbreaking account of why some states successfully convince others to join their policy initiatives, and why others fail. Examining China’s Belt and Road Initiative and COVID-19, Thomas Colley and Carolijn van Noort argue that strategic narratives can help persuade states to join global policy initiatives if they convincingly promise audiences material gain while avoiding undermining their ontological security. They make their case by analysing eight diverse countries: India, Italy, Kazakhstan, Mexico, the Maldives, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA. Theoretically novel and global in scope, this book provides a compelling explanation of how strategic narratives can help achieve the global policy coordination needed to confront vital challenges in contemporary international relations. The proposed strategic narrative buy-in framework is applicable to many global policy issues, be it promoting trade and infrastructure projects, mitigating climate change or managing pandemics.

This encyclopaedia provides a comprehensive overview of major theories and approaches to the study of peace and conflict across different humanities and social sciences disciplines. Peace and conflict studies (PCS) is one of the major sub-disciplines of international studies (including political science and international relations), and has emerged from a need to understand war, related systems and concepts and how to respond to it afterward. As a living reference work, easily discoverable and searchable, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies offers solid material for understanding the foundational, historical, and contemporary themes, concepts, theories, events, organisations, and frameworks concerning peace, conflict, security, rights, institutions and development. The Palgrave Encyclopaedia of Peace and Conflict Studies brings together leading and emerging scholars from different disciplines to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date resource on peace and conflict studies ever produced.

This edited volume rethinks the relationship between power and law in the age of China’s rise by examining recent developments in the South China Sea (SCS). The contributors explore different interpretations of international law on the legal status of the contested islands and rocks and provide detailed analyses of the contested concepts and provisions, the 2016 ruling by the SCS arbitration tribunal, as well as the environmental, economic, and political impacts of the ruling. This book facilitates a more meaningful and productive dialogue over the intersection, interaction, and interdependence between power and law in the context of the SCS. Assessing the interactions between political, legal, and normative forces, it provides insights into the specific dynamics of the dispute and the shifting security landscape in the region, but also offers a basis for thinking more deeply about the broader rise of China. This book will appeal to both students and scholars of IR, International Law, and Asian Studies and those engaged in research on the SCS disputes, the rise of China, and with a theoretical interest in law and power in international affairs.

This edited volume examines the competitive dynamics of two order-building projects in the Indo-Pacific, namely China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the US-led Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). Foci are on how far the two major powers are able to use institutional projects to (re)order the region of the Indo-Pacific to suit their policy preferences, and on how regional powers perceive and navigate between the two ordering projects. This book discusses a wide array of actors in the Indo-Pacific, covering the two major powers of China and the United States, middle powers of Australia and New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and institutional actors of ASEAN, AUKUS, the Quad and the Pacific Islands Forum. Drawing on the concept of international order, the chapters examine the actor-specific foreign policies in relation to the rivalry between the FOIP and the BRI. This accessible book will be a go-to resource for anyone looking for how the two great powers garner legitimacy and followership for their own version of ordering project, and how regional powers respond to the dynamic competition and navigate between China and the United States, and between the forces of liberal democracy and autocracy.

This book re-constructs the evolution of the border conflict between Croatia and Slovenia. The aim is to reveal the processes at work, the historical and contemporary circumstances, and the strategies and motives of the actors involved. The book highlights the roles of the European Union and of judicial third parties in the management of the conflict. Further, it considers the precedent-setting value of the Slovenian-Croatian conflict, the attempts at its resolution, and what they mean for the ongoing and prospective EU enlargement in South East Europe. Internal documents and interviews are at the heart of this process-tracing analysis, which discusses the third-party roles of the European Commission and the EU Council Presidency in 2008/2009 as a mediator-facilitator in the drafting stages of the arbitration agreement, and the judicial work of the arbitration tribunal and the EU Court of Justice. Lastly, the book offers policy recommendations on how to strengthen dispute resolution and solve current bilateral issues in the EU accession process.

Arguing that security relations between China and Southeast Asia are profoundly affected by disputes over maritime space and territory in the South China Sea, the author demonstrates that the primacy of strategic competition over strategic partnerships promotes the emergence of a structure of deterrence, encouraging South East Asia to side with the United States to balance the military power of China. Combining the concepts of international disputes and order, the book establishes a framework designed to focus on periods of transition where international regulatory mechanisms are out of step with developments in the security environments of states. Features include: - Substantial evidence that strategic competition between the United States, China and South East Asia promotes stability. - A comprehensive account of military, diplomatic, economic, historical and legal aspects of security environments of states. Suitable for scholars and graduate students of international relations, international law, security studies, conflict management and regionalism, it will also be invaluable supplementary reading for undergraduate courses.

This volume brings together international experts to provide fresh perspectives on geopolitical concerns in the South China Sea. The book considers the interests and security strategies of each of the nations with a claim to ownership and jurisdiction in the Sea. Examining contexts including the region’s natural resources and China’s behaviour, the book also assesses the motivations and approaches of other states in Asia and further afield. This is an accessible, even-handed and comprehensive examination of current and future rivalries and challenges in one of the most strategically important and militarized maritime regions of the world.