Papers by Laura Southgate
The Obama Administration’s Asia Pivot strategy has sought to strengthen the United States’ (US) b... more 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 multi-dimensional 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 ...
In a conscious early attempt to move US-China relations away from a zero-sum conception of great ... more In a conscious early attempt to move US-China relations away from a zero-sum conception of great power relations, President Obama said he wanted China to assume responsibilities commensurate with its rising power status. One of these responsibilities has been the challenge of halting or curtailing the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs. In President Obama’s view, China’s role in addressing this nuclear proliferation challenge is vital. Engagement with China has therefore been a significant component of the administration’s non-proliferation strategy. As this paper will show, this approach has elicited mixed results. At the same time, it is clear that globalization has complicated the dynamics of Great Power competition.
Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs
This article analyzes the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s (ASEAN) interactions with China... more 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.
Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs
This paper investigates the history of ASEAN's relationship to external intervention in regional ... more This paper investigates the history of ASEAN's relationship to external intervention in regional affairs. It addresses a specific question: What was the basic cause of the success of ASEAN resistance to the Vietnamese challenge to ASEAN's sovereignty from 1978-1991? ASEAN's history is understood in terms of a realist theoretical logic, in terms of the relationship between an ASEAN state with the most compelling interests at stake in a given issue, which I call a 'vanguard state,' and selected external powers.
Intelligence and National Security, 2015
International Politics, 2016
The Obama leadership has seemingly gone further than previous administrations in recognizing that... more The Obama leadership has seemingly gone further than previous administrations in recognizing that globalization has fundamentally reshaped the structure of world politics, and made the idea of US unilateralism deeply problematic. In the words of Susan Rice, while US leadership in the world "is necessary it's rarely sufficient". But the Obama team's fresh emphasis on diplomacy, its tilt towards multilateralism and its desire to lighten the US' global military footprint has not led to the abandonment of US exceptionalism. Rather, US exceptionalism has been reframed in terms of the resilience and power of the American democratic and economic example in an interconnected world. History, the Obama administration contends, is on the side of the American democratic political system. In contrast to authoritarian rival states, the US democratic model is not only more prosperous and stable, but is also able to more successfully adapt to the pressures and opportunities of globalization.
In New Zealand, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extraordinary scope of the National Securi... more In New Zealand, Edward Snowden’s revelations about the extraordinary scope of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) surveillance capabilities and the facilitating role of the Five Eyes alliance converged with increasing public concerns about the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) Amendment and Related Legislation Bill in 2013. This generated an intense and sustained debate in the country about surveillance policy. It was a debate in which the Prime Minister John Key has featured prominently. A conceptual model developed by Michelle Hale Williams is outlined to help define, understand and measure the impact factor in New Zealand. While apparently unable to clearly refute Snowden’s claims concerning mass surveillance in New Zealand, John Key’s vigorous public interventions helped counter the short-term political and diplomatic fallout. However, the long-term impact of public concerns over the surveillance policies of the Key government may be much harder to predict in w...
Thousands of people risk their lives daily by crossing borders in search of a better life. During... more Thousands of people risk their lives daily by crossing borders in search of a better life. During 2015, over one million of these people arrived in Europe. Images of refugees in distress became headline news in what was considered to be the worst humanitarian crisis in Europe since 1945. This book provides a critical overview of recent migration flows and offers answers as to why people flee, what happens during their flight and investigates the various responses to mass migratory movements. Divided in two parts, the book addresses long-running academic, policy and domestic debates, drawing on case studies of migration in Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific. Coming from a variety of different fields, the contributors provide an interdisciplinary approach and open the discussion on the reasons why migration should be examined critically.
European View
The EU has been content to remain a marginal actor in the maritime sovereignty disputes in the Ea... more The EU has been content to remain a marginal actor in the maritime sovereignty disputes in the East and South China Seas. It has adopted a diplomatic strategy that stresses the importance of upholding freedom of navigation and confidence building between the states party to the conflict. As argued here, this approach does not take account of the crucial interests Europe has at stake in the conflict. It is made even less tenable by China’s increasingly assertive behaviour towards securing its sovereignty in the region. Europe is at a crossroads: the EU may seek to overcome internal and external challenges to enhance its hard power capabilities, or it may continue to pursue a wholly soft power approach. Either way, how the EU deals with the current dispute will determine, in large part, its future role as a global security actor.
ASEAN Resistance to Sovereignty Violation
This chapter concludes by analysing the research findings to provide a definitive response to the... more This chapter concludes by analysing the research findings to provide a definitive response to the central research question advanced in this book. In doing so, it assesses the applicability of vanguard state theory to sovereignty violation in Southeast Asia, and concludes by considering the potential effects of humanitarian intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) on the future of ASEAN sovereignty.
ASEAN Resistance to Sovereignty Violation
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Political Science
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) pursuit for a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neut... more The Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) pursuit for a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) first began during the Cold War, at a time of intense superpower rivalry in Southeast Asia. ASEAN reaffirmed the importance of this principle in 2020, amid growing concerns of instability in the Asia-Pacific region as a result of increasing tensions between the United States (US) and China. Through an examination of the ZOPFAN principle, this paper seeks to develop a greater understanding of ASEAN's ability to respond to periods of geopolitical crisis and Great Power rivalry. It asks whether a ZOPFAN in Southeast Asia has ever been successfully realised, and what is the likelihood of one being achieved in the future. As analysis of recent security challenges will show, ZOPFAN falls short as both a framework for regional security and as an expression of regional autonomy. This raises serious questions about ASEAN's coherence in the post-Cold War era, and its ability to uphold regional order in light of renewed Great Power security competition.
This article analyzes the Association of Southeast Asian Nation’s (ASEAN) interactions with China... more 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 neo-realist 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 over-emphasize or under-emphasize ASEAN’s autonomy in regional politics.
China-US Relations in Global Perspective
In a conscious early attempt to move US-China relations away from a zero-sum conception of great ... more In a conscious early attempt to move US-China relations away from a zero-sum conception of great power relations, President Obama said he wanted China to assume responsibilities commensurate with its rising power status. One of these responsibilities has been the challenge of halting or curtailing the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs. In President Obama’s view, China’s role in addressing this nuclear proliferation challenge is vital. Engagement with China has therefore been a significant component of the administration’s non-proliferation strategy. As this paper will show, this approach has elicited mixed results. At the same time, it is clear that globalization has complicated the dynamics of Great Power competition.
The Obama leadership has seemingly gone further than previous administrations in recognizing that... more The Obama leadership has seemingly gone further than previous administrations in recognizing that globalization has fundamentally reshaped the structure of world politics, and made the idea of US unilateralism deeply problematic. In the words of Susan Rice, while US leadership in the world “is necessary it's rarely sufficient”. But the Obama team’s fresh emphasis on diplomacy, its tilt towards multilateralism and its desire to lighten the US’ global military footprint has not led to the abandonment of US exceptionalism. Rather, US exceptionalism has been reframed in terms of the resilience and power of the American democratic and economic example in an interconnected world. History, the Obama administration contends, is on the side of the American democratic political system. In contrast to authoritarian rival states, the US democratic model is not only more prosperous and stable, but is also able to more successfully adapt to the pressures and opportunities of globalization.
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Papers by Laura Southgate