This Handbook examines the theory and practice of international relations in Asia. Building on an investigation of how various theoretical approaches to international relations can elucidate Asia's empirical realities, authors examine the foreign relations and policies of major countries or sets of countries.

In the past quarter century, the importance of Asia in international relations has grown exponentially. This Handbook gathers the most important scholars in the field of Asia's international relations to address this momentous change in world politics. The editors and contributors focus on three basic themes: assessing appropriate theories for explaining the evolution of the international relations of Asian countries within the region and with the rest of the world; tracing the recent history of Asia in world politics; and focusing on emerging trends. The Handbook brings readers the latest scholarship on the bilateral, regional, and global relations of Asian countries in the fields of political economy, national security, and human security. Comprehensive in theme, breadth, and methodology, this Handbook is a timely addition to the existing literature on the changes currently underway in Asian countries that promise to have significant implications for world politics.

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of the international relations of South Asia. South Asia as a region is increasingly assuming greater significance in global politics for a host of compelling reasons. This volume offers the most comprehensive collection of perspectives on the international politics of South Asia, and it it covers an extensive range of issues spanning from inter-state wars to migration in the region. Each contribution provides a careful discussion of the four major theoretical approaches to the study of international politics: Realism, Constructivism, Liberalism, and Critical Theory. In turn, the chapters discuss the relevance of each approach to the issue area addressed in the book. The volume offers coverage of the key issues under four thematic sections: - Theoretical Approaches to the Study of the International Relations of South Asia - Traditional and Emerging Security Issues in South Asia - The International Relations of South Asia - Cross-cutting Regional Issues Further, every effort has been made in the chapters to discuss the origins, evolution and future direction of each issue. This book will be of much interest to students of South Asian politics, human security, regional security, and International Relations in general.

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Regionalism - the first of its kind - offers a systematic and wide-ranging survey of the scholarship on regionalism, regionalization, and regional governance. Unpacking the major debates, leading authors of the field synthesize the state of the art, provide a guide to the comparative study of regionalism, and identify future avenues of research. Twenty-seven chapters review the theoretical and empirical scholarship with regard to the emergence of regionalism, the institutional design of regional organizations and issue-specific governance, as well as the effects of regionalism and its relationship with processes of regionalization. The authors explore theories of cooperation, integration, and diffusion explaining the rise and the different forms of regionalism. The handbook also discusses the state of the art on the world regions: North America, Latin America, Europe, Eurasia, Asia, North Africa and the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Various chapters survey the literature on regional governance in major issue areas such as security and peace, trade and finance, environment, migration, social and gender policies, as well as democracy and human rights. Finally, the handbook engages in cross-regional comparisons with regard to institutional design, dispute settlement, identities and communities, legitimacy and democracy, as well as inter- and transregionalism.

East Asia's rapidly changing role in international security, the global economy, development and global governance are expertly accounted for in this much-needed, state-of-the-art text. Xiaoming Huang offers an engaging and informed account of the key concepts, issues and actors working in this area. Ranging from the region's history, to culture and a comparative assessment of the region's states, this text is informed throughout by a compelling theoretical framework. In so doing, it unpicks the often complex relationships both at the domestic level and externally. Only with this understanding is it possible to make sense of the region's complex relationships both internally and externally. Structured around key concepts in international relations of war and peace, economic development and increased contemporary security threats, this text offers an empirically-rich, engaging account of the changing fortunes of East Asia.

This book shows how historical experiences have affected East Asian security debates, as reflected in enduring concerns with sovereign autonomy.

The Kyoto School and International Relations explores the Kyoto School’s challenge to transcend the ‘Western’ domination over the ‘rest’ of the world, and the issues this raises for contemporary ‘non-Western’ and ‘Global IR’ literature. Was the support of Kyoto School thinkers inevitable due to the despotism of military government, thus nothing to do with their philosophy, or a logical extension of their philosophical engagement? The book answers this question by investigating individual Kyoto School philosophers in detail. The author argues that any attempts to transcend the ‘West’ are destined to be drawn into power politics as far as they uncritically adopt and use the prevailing ontological concept of linear progressive time and dominant meta-narrative of Westphalia. Thus, to fully understand this problem, there is the need to be cautious of the power of language of Westphalia and the concept of time in IR. Aimed at students and scholars of IR theory, Japanese politics and East Asian IR in general, this book provides some introductory explanations of these academic subjects, developing a theory based on the concepts of time and language of Kyoto School philosophy.

"Abstract: With the rapid rise of China and the relative decline of the United States, the topic of power transition conflicts is back in popular and scholarly attention. The discipline of International Relations offers much on why violent power transition conflicts occur, yet very few substantive treatments exist on why and how peaceful changes happen in world politics. This Handbook is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject of peaceful change in International Relations. It contains some 41 chapters, all written by scholars from different theoretical and conceptual backgrounds examining the multi-faceted dimensions of this subject. In the first part, key conceptual and definitional clarifications are offered and in the second part, papers address the historical origins of peaceful change as an International Relations subject matter during the Inter-War, Cold War, and Post-Cold War eras. In the third part, each of the IR theoretical traditions and paradigms in particular Realism, liberalism, constructivism and critical perspectives and their distinct views on peaceful change are analyzed. In the fourth part papers tackle the key material, ideational and social sources of change. In the fifth part, the papers explore selected great and middle powers and their foreign policy contributions to peaceful change, realizing that many of these states have violent past or tend not to pursue peaceful policies consistently. In part six, the contributors evaluate the peaceful change that occurred in the world's key regions. In the final part, the editors address prospective research agenda and trajectories on this important subject matter. Keywords: Peaceful Change; War; Security; International Relations Theory; Sources of Change; Systemic Theory; Realism; Liberalism; Constructivism; Critical Theories"--

Current international relations (IR) theories and approaches, which are almost exclusively built in the West, are alien to the non-Western contexts that engender the most hard-pressing problems of the world and ultimately unhelpful in understanding or addressing the needs surrounding these issues. Our supposedly revolutionary new concepts and approaches remain largely insufficient in explaining what happens globally and in offering lessons for improvement. This deficiency can only be addressed by building more relevant theories. For theory to be relevant in accounting for contemporary international relations, we argue, it should not only apply to, but also emanate from different corners of the current political universe. In other words, diversity and dialogue can only come about when periphery scholars do not just "meta-theorize" but also "theorize." Aydinli and Biltekin propose a new form of theorizing through this collection of work, one that effectively blends peripheral outlooks with theory production. They call this form "homegrown theorizing," or original theorizing in the periphery about the periphery. Arguing that disciplinary culture is oblivious to the diversity that might be achieved by theorizing based on indigenous ideas and/or practices, this book intends to highlight that potential, showing diversity in the background of the authors, because wherever one looks at the world from, paints the picture that is being seen. Therefore, we bring together scholars from Eastern Europe to South Africa, from Iran to Japan to cover the extant diversity in ideas. This work will be essential reading for all students and scholars concerned with the future of international relations theory.

This edited volume examines contemporary diplomatic, economic, and security competition between China and Japan in the Asia-Pacific region, focusing on their respective foreign policies under President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and regional security dynamics within and between Asian states/institutions.