Nationalist Protests,Government Responses,and the Risk of Escalation in Interstate Disputes

While the existing literature emphasizes that elites often have incentives to pander to nationalist sentiment, much less attention has been paid to elite efforts to subdue popular nationalism, either to avoid domestic instability or international escalation. This article examines how different governments respond to nationalist protests and the resulting effects on the risk that interstate disputes will escalate to armed conflict. We argue that government responses to nationalist protests tend to vary in patterned ways across regime types. Nationalist protests present particular dangers in weakly institutionalized democracies, where demonstrations often pose serious threats of instability but are difficult or costly for the government to subdue, tempting or forcing leaders to escalate to appease domestic critics. We illustrate the theory with four cases representing a range of regime types: Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines.     

The balance of great-power influence in contemporary Southeast Asia

This article reviews and critiques recent scholarly work onSoutheast Asian relations with the great powers, examining thestrategies that ASEAN governments have used and the effectsof those strategies. The author argues that Southeast Asiangovernments have generally steered away from traditional balanceof power politics to promote a more complex ‘balance ofinfluence’ comprising military, economic, institutional,and ideational dimensions. A key feature of this balance ofinfluence strategy has been its inclusiveness. Southeast Asiangovernments have invited competing great powers to participatein the region's economic and diplomatic affairs so that theydevelop stakes in the region's peace and prosperity. The authorcontends that Southeast Asian efforts have been relatively successfulto date, contributing to a multi-dimensional balance that isrelatively resilient and places significant constraints on anyexternal power's ability to exercise unwanted dominance in theregion. Received for publication August 4, 2008. Accepted for publication September 24, 2008.