Yuen Foong Khong

Unilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: International Perspectives

Has there been a new surge of American unilateralism? Why is the world fearful of a United States that goes it alone? What are the consequences, for both the United States and the world, of a unilateral America? This book seeks to answer these questions. Past discussions and debates among US contributors were sufficiently passionate as to suggest that a parallel investigation, this time by international scholars, about US approaches to multilateralism and unilateralism would prove illuminating.

The elusiveness of regional order: Leifer, the English school and Southeast Asia

Abstract ‘Regional order’ was Michael Leifers yardstick of choice to assess the international relations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Leifers recurrent theme was how elusive, and at times how illusory, regional order was for Southeast Asia. The elusiveness of regional order is attributed to ASEANs lack of a set of genuinely shared assumptions about their interrelationships with each other and external states. This article challenges Leifers portrait of a Southeast Asia devoid of regional order. I argue that Leifers notion of order is theoretically underdeveloped and methodologically imprecise, allowing the analyst to see disorder in every minor perturbation in the region. I propose replacing ‘regional order’ with ‘peace and stability’, the preferred terms of the discourse by ASEANs policy elites. By the latter criteria, ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific, contrary to the skeptics, have made impressive progress in the last forty years.

War and international theory: a commentary on the state of the art

The systematic critique of scientific approaches to international politics began with Stanley Hoffmanns provocative 1960 essay, climaxed with Hedley Bulls popular piece in World Politics six years later and breathed its last gasp with Oran Youngs attack on Russetts International Regions and The International System in 1969, Since then, the traditionalists have chosen to ignore the behavioralists.

The Agent–Structure Debate and America's Vietnam Options: A Reply to Professor Gavan Duffy

This article responds to Gavan Duffys critique of Analogies at War in his recent essay on the agent-structure debate in the JJPS (2001, 2: 161–175). I argue that Duffys use of Analogies at War to pursue his thesis about “giving structure its due” is flawed because he (1) fails to assess the book in terms of the outcomes it seeks to explain; (2) conflates “structure” with process, perceptual, and personality variables; (3) misinterprets my assumptions while neglecting the findings of recent works that corroborate the findings of Analogies at War ; and (4) fails to demonstrate one of his key suggestions, i.e. the importance of showing how agents and structures are mutually constitutive. The article concludes by discussing some pointers raised by the exchange for furthering the agent-structure debate.