Rising Sino-Japanese competition: perspectives from South-East Asian elites

One of the biggest challenges for the East Asian region today is the Sino-Japanese relationship. Starting with the fishing trawler incident in September 2010, followed by Japan's nationalisation of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, this relationship is experiencing an escalation of tensions in most, if not all, areas of the bilateral relationship. In response to the intensifying competition, China and Japan have elevated the importance of South-East Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their foreign policy strategies. Focusing on how elites from five South-East Asian states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam—perceive the engagement of China and Japan with the region, this article poses two questions: (1) How do South-East Asian elites view the Sino-Japanese competition? and (2) How do South-East Asian elites view the role of ASEAN in managing the competition? The analysis here concludes that while some South-East Asian elites see opportunities in the Sino-Japanese competition, they nevertheless do not perceive it as an issue of critical significance. Instead, the concern lies generally with major-power dynamics, and particularly with Sino-US relations. ASEAN is viewed to lack the ability to manage the negative consequences of the Sino-Japanese competition, although its external balancing function has perceptibly helped to restrain any escalation of major-power tensions.     

HOW THE VISUAL IS SPATIAL: CONTEMPORARY SPATIAL HISTORY,NEO-MARXISM,AND THE GHOST OF BRAUDEL

Contemporary spatial history is founded on the potential for maps and other visualizations to show the historical constructedness of space, usually in broadly neo-Marxist terms, yet neo-Marxist geographical theory is famously critical of visual representation, especially mapping. At stake in this contradiction isn't just the relationship between digital enthusiasm and spatial theory (or the wider spatial turn), but the theoretical status of the visual itself in spatial scholarship. It raises a crucial question: how does visual material—everything from today's statistical maps and cutting-edge data graphics to the broader use of primary-source photographs or drawings—in fact shape our understanding of space, and what theoretical work does it do? By extension, how can humanists make critical theoretical interventions through their own visual production? This article proposes an analytic vocabulary of “visual argument” grounded in an image-focused rereading of two canonical bodies of work: the neo-Marxist theory most cited by spatial history (Henri Lefebvre, David Harvey, Doreen Massey, and Edward Soja) and the conspicuously uncited work of Fernand Braudel. By focusing on how these authors’ illustrations make claims about spatial subjectivity and the historicity of space—especially through visual relationships of background and foreground—I argue for a new way of understanding and responding to this work and to the visual project of spatial history today. A visual analysis highlights not only the limitations of neo-Marxism but also the pervasiveness of certain assumptions—shared across the neo-Marxists, Braudel, and digital visualization—about temporality, the natural/human dichotomy, and the methodological tensions between argument and visualization. I present my own mapping of Phoenix as one possibility for an argument-driven rethinking of familiar visual commitments, which also suggests a broader meditation on the relationship between visual and textual scholarship.     

The Indochinese enlargement of ASEAN: security expectations and outcomes

The article examines the extent to which Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have gained from their participation in ASEAN. To assess the security and diplomatic benefits of their membership, it identifies three expectations held by the Indochinese states—enhanced international status, improved security and relations vis-à-vis other ASEAN members, and more room for manoeuvre when dealing with non-member states. The study demonstrates, however, that while Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are less isolated internationally after joining ASEAN, the actual benefits in terms of their relations with the other ASEAN members as well as non-member states have been more ambiguous. With ASEAN in mind, the article concludes by discussing the possible costs and drawbacks of enlargement that can transform any international organisation into a less influential and cohesive institution.     

The consequences of nationalism: A scholarly exchange

The main thrust of the scholarship on nationalism has so far been concerned with its origins. But nationalism also has effects. Whether it underpins the nation-building efforts of states, is mobilised by counter-state forces or is used in everyday life, nationalism might implicate a wide range of substantive outcomes, including political regimes, public goods provision, citizenship and immigration laws, and different patterns of conflict. Yet—with a few notable exceptions—the consequences of nationalism have received significantly less scholarly attention. In response, the aim of this Exchange is to create a new dialogue between different strands of scholarship around what we know and do not know about the consequences of nationalism. We organise this Exchange around the following questions: (1) What is nationalism? (2) How can we measure nationalism? (3) What are the consequences of nationalism? (4) What are new research frontiers?     

Gender as national interest at the UN Security Council

The United Nations Security Council has often been identified as a key actor responsible for the uneven trajectory of the international Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda. It is, however, the Council members—who also seek to advance their national interest at this intergovernmental forum—that are pivotal in the Council's deliberations and shape its policies. Yet, little attention has been paid to this aspect of deliberative politics at the Council in feminist scholarship on WPS. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature. It notes that gender has increasingly become part of foreign policy interests of UN member states, as evidenced by practices such as invocation of ‘women's rights’ and ‘gender equality’ in broader international security policy discourse. The article demonstrates that this national interest in gender has featured in WPS‐related developments at the Security Council. Using specific illustrations, it examines three sets of member states: the permanent and non‐permanent members as well as non‐members invited to take part in Council meetings. The main argument of this article relates to highlighting member states’ interests underpinning their diplomatic activities around WPS issues in the Security Council, with the aim to present a fuller understanding of political engagements with UNSCR 1325, the first WPS resolution, in its institutional home.     

Security and democracy: the ASEAN charter and the dilemmas of regionalism in South‐East Asia

In November 2007, the heads of the ten member governments of the Association of South‐East Asian Nations (ASEAN) signed a charter that will, once ratified, give the association a legal personality. The charter, significantly, requires more of its members than a reassertion of the traditional ASEAN norm of non‐interference and the practice of consensus. The charter lists a number of novel goals among the organization's purposes: ‘to strengthen democracy, enhance good governance and the rule of law, and to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.’ In view of the wide economic and political disparities between the member states of ASEAN, this article examines whether strengthening democracy would in fact facilitate ASEAN's goal of becoming an integrated political, economic and security community. Rather than enhancing an integrated community, democratization would arguably create a faultline between the more politically mature and economically developed states and a northern tier of less developed, authoritarian single‐party dominant regimes in South‐East Asia. Moreover, given China's emerging political and economic importance to the region, such a strategy would, as if by an invisible hand, draw the more authoritarian ASEAN states into China's less than democratic embrace. This article concludes that rather than strengthening democracy, ASEAN's charter needs urgently to reinforce practices of rule governance and mechanisms of market integration to enhance both ASEAN's economic profile as well as the region's autonomy.     

The Myanmar imbroglio and ASEAN: heading towards the 2010 elections

Following the adoption of a new constitution by national referendum, Myanmar's military junta is set to organize multiparty elections in 2010. Not least to influence Myanmar's leadership, with regard to the conditions Washington believes necessary for credible elections, the United States announced in September 2009 that it would embark on a new approach towards Naypyidaw. This will focus on a high‐level dialogue while keeping existing sanctions in place. The Obama administration has asked the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to support this new approach. Against the backdrop of the deep divide between the ruling generals and Aung San Suu Kyi, and the continued conflict between Naypyidaw and armed ethnic nationalities, this article asks: How strong is ASEAN's record when it comes to influencing the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in relation to matters of national reconciliation and political transition? What factors explain ASEAN's approach towards Myanmar? What prospect, if any, is there that ASEAN states can influence Myanmar's political developments before the 2010 elections? The article argues that ASEAN has not moved beyond a collective criticism which aims to induce Naypyidaw to respond positively to the demands of its international detractors. ASEAN's norms, different political identities and geopolitical interests coupled with the SPDC's prickliness have limited the consensus on Myanmar. Naypyidaw's calculations about relations with Washington, rather than ASEAN's ‘enhanced interactions’ with the military government, and domestic political dynamics are likely to be the crucial determinants of further developments in the context of the 2010 elections.     

Explaining Third‐Party Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Theory and Evidence

Abstract. One of the most challenging developments for students of international relations is the resurgence of ethnic strife, including secessionism and irredentism. Basic questions are only beginning to be addressed in the post‐Cold War era. Why are some states more likely than others to intervene in ethnic conflicts? How can international norms about third‐party intervention in ethnic conflicts be evaded or ignored by some states but respected by others? Why are some states inclined to use force rather than mediation to resolve ethnic strife? In short, what accounts for the emergence of adventurous and belligerent foreign policies with respect to internal ethnic conflicts? These questions are of increasing importance to students of international politics, yet the dynamics and internationalisation of ethnic conflict are far from fully understood. This study focuses on the dynamics of third‐party intervention in ethnic strife and implications for peaceful resolution. The first section presents a model that identifies the general conditions under which ethnic strife is most likely to lead to intervention by third‐party states. The second uses four cases to illustrate, within the context of the model, different processes with respect to internationalisation of ethnic conflict. The third and final stage identifies implications for policy and theory, along with directions for future research.     

Nuclear enlightenment and counter‐enlightenment

Given the apocalyptic nature of nuclear weapons, how can states establish an international order that ensures survival while allowing the weapons to be used in controlled ways to discourage great wars, and while allowing nuclear technology to dif use for civil purposes? How can the possession of nuclear weapons by a few states be reconciled with their renunciation by the majority of states? Which political strategies can best deliver an international nuclear order that is effective, legitimate and durable? These have been central questions in the nuclear age. This article suggests that the effort to construct such an order displayed the characteristics of an enlightenment project, with its emphasis on balance and rationality, the quest for justice and trust among states, the feasibility of instrumental regulation, and the attachment to hope and progress. With the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty at its heart, it necessarily gave precedence to diplomacy and containment over preventive war. The reasons why this conception of nuclear order was discarded by its erstwhile champion, the United States, in favour of one bearing traits of counter‐enlightenment, are explored. Its alternative strategy can now be declared a failure. Avoidance of a greater disorder depends on recognition that the problem of nuclear order is more than the problem of proliferation, or of non‐compliance, and on recovery—whatever the difficulties—of the cooperative yet pragmatic sensibility that lay behind the prior approach to order.     

Women,Peace and Security as an ASEAN priority

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat and its member states have repeatedly professed their commitment to the protection and advancement of women's economic and human rights. Such commitments have included the Declaration of the Advancement of Women in the ASEAN Region in 1988, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women in the ASEAN Region in 2004, and the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration in 2012, as well as the establishment of the ASEAN Committee on Women in 2002 and the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Women and Children in 2009. However, none of these regional commitments or institutions expressly take up the core concern of the Women, Peace and Security agenda set out in United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2000. ASEAN has no 1325 regional action plan and, amongst the ASEAN membership, the Philippines is the only state that has adopted a 1325 National Action Plan. The authors explore the possible reasons for the lack of ASEAN institutional engagement with 1325, outline the case for regional engagement, and suggest specific roles for the ASEAN Secretariat, donor governments and individual member states to commit to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 as a regional priority.     

Indonesia: the key to South-East Asia's security

Indonesia has played a vital role in the security of South-East Asia for more than 30 years, both through its prominent position in ASEAN and the ARF and through the stability and longevity of the Suharto regime. The central theme of this article emphasizes that peace and stability in Indonesia are the key to peace and stability in the South-East Asian region. However, instability within ASEAN countries themselves and the risk of serious upheaval in Indonesia have the potential to infect other parts of South-East Asia. The author assesses Indonesia's role in shaping regional security and the country's prospects for a successful democratic future in which the West has a strong interest in encouraging the more moderate Indonesian Islamic elements to build enduring and democratic political institutions.     

Australia-Southeast Asia relations and the East Asian Summit

The economic and geopolitical landscape of Asia has changed dramatically in recent years, providing Australia with an unprecedented opportunity to become an integral and significant player in a wider Indo-Pacific region as it charts its future and seeks to manage tensions while shaping a new architecture of cooperation. Late in 2004 at their annual summit, leaders of ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, agreed to create a new forum—the East Asian Summit—and hold the first meeting of heads of government of participating countries in Kuala Lumpur in December this year. The summit seems destined to become a regular event and thus the policy-guiding core of any future East Asian or Indo-Pacific community.     

The political geographies of D/decolonization: Variegation and decolonial challenges of /in geography

Anglophone and North Atlantic geography is enmeshed institutionally, epistemically and racially in colonial modern privilege, highlighting the urgent task of addressing its modes of theorization, interpretation, and research. Decolonizing analysis builds from postcolonial, critical, feminist and racism critiques, and problematizes accounts of knowledge, subjectivity and power. In pursuit of decolonizing knowledge production and addressing global inequalities, this paper enjoins political geography to more systematically engage with decolonial analysis, conceptualization and theory. Political geography has much to contribute to interdisciplinary decolonial scholarship through contextualized, grounded, multiscalar and granular analysis of socio-spatial relations. The paper examines the common ground and potential tensions between Anglophone political geographies and decolonial theory (῾decoloniality’), then examines the case of Ecuador's politics of plurinationalism to illustrate a decolonizing political geographical analysis. The case highlights how the variegated political geographies of decolonization arising within and against coloniality require from political geography a decolonial turn, which would entail divesting core political geography concepts of western norms, including plural epistemologies of space and power in analysis, and recalibrating knowledge production processes.     

A queer theory of software studies: software theories,queer studies

This introduction to the themed section ‘Queering Code/Space’ poses the question: what is the spatial relationship between technology and sexuality? We outline two overarching issues concerning technology and sexuality that lie outside of yet intersect with discussions in geographical scholarship. We then detail the characteristics of two largely distinct schools of thought – software studies and queer theory – to examine the tensions of and correspondence between these separate intellectual systems. We assess what might be productively found at the intersections of software studies and queer theory in terms of their respective epistemological approaches toward the topics of technology and sexuality. We briefly outline the effects the combination of software studies and queer theory have had on geography and what more they might have to offer. We conclude by providing an overview of the articles in the themed section.     

The body eating its food politics: reflections on relationalities and embodied ways of knowing

This Viewpoint article builds on feminist geography research methods, scholarship of embodiment, and more-than-human geographies to challenge us to think about how relationalities are reconfigured through attention to the human eater’s body. Drawing on an example from ethnographic research, the author problematizes how an embodied act of eating other non-human bodies raises concerns for how we negotiate the complicated sets of ethical relations that we each confront on a daily basis. In particular, this example is used to describe the ethical dilemmas researchers encounter when the intellect conflicts or collides with the corporeal. Rather than reinstate the mind–body dualism that feminists have long argued against, this article grapples with the complicated and complex negotiations embodied knowledge contributes to academic knowledge production. Embodied knowledge is not straightforward, yet should be acknowledged in our academic scholarship and debated about its potential for epistemological and ontological openings in our areas of research.     

Changing security threat perceptions in Central Asia

This article discusses the current process of securitisation in Central Asia and identifies its convoluted and faulty nature as a factor impeding collective security action in the region. It uses the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT) as an explanatory tool and posits that security discourse in — and about — the five former Soviet republics is dominated by geopolitical grand strategy on the one hand and by particularist concerns about lack of democracy or transnational threats on the other. Issues of conventional security involving two or more states, such as territorial disputes or resource management, are pushed aside and rarely securitised at the official level. The article outlines conceptual and institutional reasons for this bias, and argues that unless inter-state tensions are properly analysed, debated and addressed, the prospects for security and stability in the region will remain grim.     

10th Anniversary Address For a feminist geography of ambivalence

This article argues for and invokes an ambivalent feminist spatiality. Drawing on the idea that the position of feminist academic is a contradiction in terms, together with my ambivalence about presenting the Gender, Place and Culture 10th Anniversary Lecture, I illustrate ways in which feminists successfully inhabit unresolved tensions about academic authority. I then explore four themes in feminist politics—equality, autonomy, difference and deconstruction—showing how each contains internal tensions that are held as ambivalences through the spatialities to which they appeal. The two sections of the essay deploy different voices with a view to generating space for ambivalence.     

Online methods in geography educational research

South Africa's higher education system has undergone significant change since the end of apartheid. A central theme in the debates on higher education transformation has been the tension between the global imperatives of development and the need for universities to respond to the legacy of apartheid. This paper explores this tension by considering recent changes in geographical teaching and research. The paper argues that many of the tensions evident in higher education between the global and the local, which are as yet unresolved, find expression within South African geographical scholarship.     

Human rights in a global ecumene

How should we understand the cultural politics that has surrounded the development of international human rights? Two perspectives frame contemporary debate. For ‘cultural particularists’, human rights are western artefacts; alien to other societies, and an inappropriate basis for international institutional development. For ‘negotiated universalists’, a widespread global consensus undergirds international human rights norms, with few states openly contesting their status as fundamental standards of political legitimacy. This article advances an alternative understanding, pursuing John Vincent's provocative, yet undeveloped, suggestion that while the notion of human rights has its origins in European culture, its spread internationally is best understood as the product of a ‘universal social process’. The international politics of individual/human rights is located within an evolving global ecumene, a field of dynamic cultural engagement, characterized over time by the development of multiple modernities. Within this field, individual/human rights have been at the heart of diverse forms of historically transformative contentious politics, not the least being the struggles for imperial reform and change waged by subject peoples of diverse cultural backgrounds; struggles that not only played a key role in the construction of the contemporary global system of sovereign states, but also transformed the idea of ‘human’ rights itself. In developing this alternative understanding, the article advances a different understanding of the relation between power and human rights, one in which rights are seen as neither simple expressions of, or vehicles for, western domination, nor robbed of all power‐political content by simple notions of negotiation or consensus. The article concludes by considering, in a very preliminary fashion, the implications of this new account for normative theorizing about human rights. If a prima facie case exists for the normative justifiability of such rights, it lies first in their radical nature—in their role in historically transformative contentious politics—and second in their universalizability, in the fact that one cannot plausibly claim them for oneself while denying them to others.     

The ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area: genesis and implications

The Asia‐Pacific region's vulnerabilities to the consequences of globalisation were vividly revealed by its financial crisis in 1997–98. ASEAN states considered the US and APEC less than helpful during the crisis, and they found the conditionalities imposed by the IMF unpalatable. But ASEAN as a regional organisation has been much weakened, and it has been working hard to revive its influence. The ‘ASEAN plus 3’ approach has been perceived as an important means to strengthen ASEAN's status and relevance. The ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area is undoubtedly an outstanding achievement of this approach; but ASEAN has been trying to keep its options open. On the other hand, China has been concerned with the danger of a deterioration in Sino‐American relations and the increasing distrust between Tokyo and Beijing. Improvement of China‐ASEAN relations therefore assumes increasing significance in China's regional policy; and enhancing mutual interests and interdependence is the best way to erode the ASEAN states' perception of the ‘China threat’. But China must not neglect the interests of Japan and South Korea or underestimate ASEAN's resistance to the exclusion of the US and its desire to maintain a balance of power in the region. The ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area, hopefully, should also facilitate the narrowing of the gap between the more developed and the developing ASEAN members, as well as that between the more prosperous coastal provinces and the poor interior provinces in China. In many ways, the establishment of the ASEAN‐China Free Trade Area represents a challenge to what can be achieved in the mutual engagement process.