International Relations in Southeast Asia : The Struggle for Autonomy

This balanced, comprehensive guide to Southeast Asian politics offers a sensible but nondogmatic realist approach to the region's international relations. In this revised, third edition, Donald E. Weatherbee lucidly explains the dynamics of the Southeast Asian subsystem as a struggle for autonomy in pursuit of national interests.

This fully revised and updated edition of Donald E. Weatherbee’s widely praised text offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to international relations in contemporary Southeast Asia. The author analyzes the efforts of the Southeast Asian states to adapt collectively through the ASEAN Community-building process to the challenges of traditional intraregional security issues, the requirements of the international economy, and the political demands of nontraditional issues such as democracy, human rights, and environmental degradation. Weatherbee warns that autonomy, expressed in the claim to the ASEAN Community’s “centrality” to Asia, could be threatened by the strategic impact of China’s rise and America’s recommitment to regional strategic balance. An invaluable guide to the region, this thoughtful and lucid work will be an essential text for courses on Southeast Asia and on the international relations of the Asia-Pacific.