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Begin New Search Topic War Journal International Relations of the Asia-Pacific Publication Year within 10 Years

1. Territorial acquisition, commitment, and recurrent war

Author:
Shoko Kohama
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This study investigates how territorial acquisition through war affects the durability of a successive ceasefire and determines what type of territorial acquisition is more detrimental to post-war peace. Despite the wealth of literature on recurrent war and on territory, the effect of territorial acquisition on war resumption has been understudied. This study shows that territorial acquisition creates expectations among adversaries for future power shifts, which results in a commitment problem that hinders peaceful revision of the existing ceasefire. Indeed, duration analysis of ceasefires following interstate wars since World War II shows that territorial change in war, especially acquisition of large and densely populated territories that have potential utility for greater power shifts, makes ceasefires more prone to failure. The analysis of Sino-Vietnamese ceasefires following militarized incidents over land and sea borders also illustrates the importance of territorial acquisition and the potential utility of the territory.
Topic:
War, Territorial Disputes, and Ceasefire
Political Geography:
Asia-Pacific

2. Domestic political institutions and the initiation of international conflict in East Asia: some evidence for an Asian democratic peace

Author:
Benjamin E. Goldsmith
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
There is doubt about whether the 'democratic peace' proposition applies in Asia. I theoretically deconstruct regime type into institutional components including political competition, constraint on the executive, and mass participation, and ask whether taking these as distinct causal factors gives more empirical purchase on the relationship of domestic political institutions to states' external conflict behavior. I find that higher levels of political competition are associated with a lower likelihood of conflict initiation, but only when the potential target is relatively democratic. Thus, my directed-dyad analysis is consistent with a democratic peace effect in East Asia. It is also suggestive regarding the observed 'East Asian peace' that has existed since 1979, because levels of political competition have risen considerably in the region, beginning in the late 1970s.
Topic:
Politics and War
Political Geography:
East Asia

3. Recalcitrance and initiative: US hegemony and regional powers in Asia and Europe after World War II

Author:
Arthur A. Stein
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
This paper challenges the conventional wisdom that US power and preferences following World War II led to bilateralism in Asia and multilateralism in Western Europe. It argues that the challenges facing the United States in both regions were similar, as were US policies meant to address them. With some lag, the United States supported the economic recovery of the regional powers it had defeated (Germany and Japan), saw the restoration of regional trade as a prerequisite, sought military bases to assure postwar security, and envisioned rearming its former foes as part of its security strategy. The outcomes in the two regions reflected the preferences and reservations of regional actors. The critical differences between the regions were structural. The existence of middle powers was critical in Europe, the return of colonial powers to Asia precluded regional arrangements in the short term, and geostrategic differences shaped the requisites for regional security.
Topic:
Economics and War
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Asia

4. East Asia and international relations theory

Author:
Masaru Kohno
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
East Asia now occupies a prominent place in the study of international relations (IR). This, of course, does not mean that IR scholarship in the past failed to pay due attention to East Asia. Wars, trade, and international integration in this region have been the subject of analysis in countless books and scholarly articles. However, the renewed interest in this region is not so much empirically driven (to increase East Asian coverage in the literature) as before but rather represents a theoretical inquiry pertinent to the intellectual underpinning of the scholarship itself. Today, some experts of the region harshly criticize the 'euro-centric' bias of existing IR study and seek to provide alternative conceptions based on the East Asian experience. In response, other scholars have advanced views less provocative but more nuanced about the originality of East Asia. And, there are still others who ï–‚atly reject the connotation that the logic of East Asian international relations is inherently different from that elsewhere. Thus, a diverse set of perspectives has been laid out on the table, but their strengths and shortcomings are yet to be evaluated systematically.
Topic:
International Relations, Economics, and War
Political Geography:
East Asia

5. Imperial Eclipse: Japan's Strategic Thinking about Continental Asia before August 1945

Author:
Frederick R. Dickinson
Publication Date:
05-2014
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Relations of the Asia-Pacific
Institution:
Japan Association of International Relations
Abstract:
As Yukiko Koshiro appropriately notes at the outset of her striking new study, the Asia-Pacific component of World War II comes with many labels, each associated with particular audiences. 'Pacific War' is the preferred term for most Americans, who focus on the fight between Japanese and American forces in the Pacific. 'Fifteen Years' War' is used by Japanese Marxists to describe a much longer series of battles begun on the Asian continent in 1931 and expanding to wider destruction through 1945. 'Greater East Asia War' is the label of choice of the Japanese right, which continues to imagine a battle for' liberation' of Asian peoples from Western imperialism.
Topic:
War
Political Geography:
Japan and Asia