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Alternative realities: Explaining security in the Asia-Pacific

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2017

Mark Beeson
Mark Beeson*
Affiliation:
University of Western Australia
*
* Correspondence to: Mark Beeson, Political Science and International Relations, M259, School of Social Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6001. Author’s email: mark.beeson@uwa.edu.au
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Abstract

The central argument of this article is that constructivists in particular underestimate or even ignore the importance of the ‘real’ structural inheritance that shapes state (and the political elites that represent them) behaviour. Even though the future is indeterminate, some outcomes are decidedly more likely than others, especially where policymakers believe they inhabit a strategic universe of zero sum outcomes and where self-reliance and assertion remain important. I suggest that ‘critical realism’ offers a way of accounting for the institutional structures that shape international behaviour. The first half of this article makes the case for a critical realist approach. The second half illustrates the possible importance of this claim with reference to the contemporary geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific region.

Keywords

Critical RealismSecurityAsia-PacificInstitutions
Type
Articles
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , July 2017 , pp. 516 - 533
Copyright
© British International Studies Association 2017 

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