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The term Indo-Pacific has enjoyed growing popularity for years as a geographical and strategic construct. Increasingly, the Indo-Pacific is not conceived merely as a geographical construct, but also as a vital alternative to the Chinese "Belt and Road" Initiative (bri). Conversely, Beijing views the debates over the Indo-Pacific as nothing more than an anti-Chinese containment strategy. Chinese criticism notwithstanding, the debate on the Indo-Pacific has gained traction within Europe, too. France promoted its own Indo-Pacific concept from 2018 onwards, followed by Germany in 2020 with their own Indo-Pacific Leitlinien (guidelines) that preceded the launch of the EU's own Indo-Pacific strategy in 2021. To assess possible focus points of an emerging EU approach to the Indo-Pacific, this article evaluates strategic convergence and divergence between the so-called E2, France and Germany. It finds that Germany and France, despite their different role conceptions, converge with regard to their key objectives, planned initiatives and conceptualisations of regional order. The article also finds, however, that these contain, for the most part, very general declarations of interests and intent while also foregoing concrete strategic choices. It argues that any future EU approach to the Indo-Pacific is therefore likely to emerge around the least common denominator focus points, drawing on long-established EU approaches towards the Asia-Pacific, rather than a new, clear-cut EU approach to the Indo-Pacific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), formerly known as One Belt One Road (OBOR), has emerged as one of the top priorities for Chinese President Xi Jinping ever since he unveiled the initiative in 2013. This special issue surveys the reception of BRI in East Asia. As China's immediate neighborhood, this region will play an important role in determining whether Beijing's signature project will succeed in the mid- to long term. However, research has thus far mostly focused on BRI's reception in Central Asia and (Eastern) Europe. In this introduction, we first provide an overview of the literature by identifying three main strands of interpretation on BRI, namely those focusing on geoeconomics, on geopolitics, and on international norms as well as order. Next, we provide a review of the contemporary research on both Southeast Asian and Northeast Asian perceptions of and policy responses to BRI. Finally, we discuss research gaps in the literature and provide an overview of case studies and findings in this special issue. We conclude by identifying recurring themes and characteristics in East Asian responses to BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Indonesian “haze” that engulfs Southeast Asia is a result of the burning of forests and has a detrimental effect on the health of millions of people. Indonesia is currently the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world. In response to the dangers posed by forest fires to national and global environmental security, the then Indonesian president publicly declared a “war on haze” in 2006 and called for the use of all necessary measures to stop the deliberate setting of fires. Although his strong “securitising” rhetoric received much public support, it is yet to produce results. The Indonesian authorities have had little success in preventing fires or prosecuting the culprits. Indonesia thus appears to be a null case – that is, a case of an unsuccessful securitisation. We argue that this unsuccessful securitisation needs to be understood against the backdrop of Indonesia’s vast decentralisation process, which resulted in certain powers being devolved from Jakarta to the provinces. We find that it is the ability of local and regional elites (often entrenched in patronage networks with plantation owners) to curtail environmental policies which explains the continuation of forest fires. With regard to securitisation theory, our findings suggest that securitising moves and audience acceptance do not necessarily lead to the successful implementation of emergency measures. It appears that there are intermediate factors – in our case mainly linked to the nature of and the distribution of power within the political regime – that impact on the success of securitisation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since, Goldman Sachs coined the term BRICS academics, and policy makers have struggled to come to terms with the effects and the impact of rising powers on world politics. The German government has tried to stay abreast of the changing global power dynamics by entering the so-called strategic partnerships with China and India, as well as aiming for a more systematic approach towards rising powers as laid out in the 'Gestaltungsmaechtekonzept' (transformative powers concept) published under the Merkel government in 2012. Against this background, this article inquires on the depth and scope of Germany's strategic partnerships towards Asia's rising powers. It finds that despite new institutional developments such as intergovernmental consultations at ministerial level, the strategic partnerships with Delhi and Berlin are still lacking in substance due to a discrepancy of policy preferences and interests in a variety of policy fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, policebuilding has moved centre stage in international security. Not only have the numbers of police officers deployed externally significantly increased in the last decade, but the police have also come to be regarded as key with regard to the stabilizing of weak or failed states. It is hereby assumed that the police, as a civilian force, are better trained and equipped to establish order and stability than the military. This article challenges such a military–police divide, according to which the police are understood to be a civilian institution that mainly ‘serves and protects’ while the military ‘breaks things and kills people’. It argues that while the blurring between military functions and police functions might be more bleak and observable as part of international interventions in so-called zones of disorder, we need to understand the police theoretically as part of a single continuum of state institutions designed to simultaneously serve and protect the population and to establish and maintain liberal state power through (sometimes) forceful, exclusionary means. The article will illustrate this theoretical argument through a detailed analysis of the evolution of European Union international police power. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The externalization of the EU’s Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) as part of the EU’s wider external relations has received increasing scholarly attention in the last years. An important and reoccurring theme within this field, which has occupied scholars and policy-makers alike, has been the EU’s counter-terrorism cooperation with third states. Initially viewed as a ‘paper tiger’ in international efforts to combat terrorism, recent studies have illustrated the increasing activism of the EU in international counter-terrorism cooperation. However, these studies have exclusively drawn on North American or ENP case studies. By analysing the EU’s counter-terrorism with ASEAN this article tries to extend the empirical basis of contemporary scholarship to the case study of EU–ASEAN cooperation. It thereby attempts to examine prospects and limits of the externalization of JHA with a special focus on counter-terrorism policies beyond the immediate EU neighbourhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Germany's ‘Chinapolitik’ under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was driven by economic interests, Angela Merkel promised a normative turn in foreign policy toward China. This apparent turn became most visible in 2007 when she met with the Dalai Lama, which caused strong diplomatic protest from Beijing. This article asks whether Germany's foreign policy toward China did in fact shift under the leadership of Angela Merkel. Based on cognitive approaches, especially image theory, the perception(s) of China held by Chancellor Merkel and their impact on German foreign policy toward China are analysed. The findings suggest that the dominant image of China is that of a key trade partner on whom Germany's economy is increasingly dependent with little emphasis given to the political or normative discrepancies between the two countries. The article argues that Sino-German relations under Merkel appear to be more one-dimensional than the fall-out over the Dalai Lama issue suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illustrates how discourses on ‘state fragility’ have been instrumentalised by the Indonesian military in order to consolidate its political and economic power after the fall of Suharto. In the wake of Indonesia’s transition to democracy violent conflicts escalated in East Timor, Aceh, Papua, the Moluccas and Sulawesi. Most notably East Timor’s successful secession spawned fears over the potential ‘balkanisation’ of Indonesia. In this context the Indonesian military, which had been shunned for its involvement in Suharto’s New Order, managed to re-establish itself as the ‘guardian of the nation’. Based on fieldwork in Indonesia, the article describes how post-9/11 discourses over a potential break-up of Indonesia were used by the Indonesian military to reconsolidate its power in the post-Suharto era. The research findings illustrate that, against the looming threat of state disintegration, attempts to revoke the military’s prerogatives have either failed or have been aborted during the planning stages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines European and US approaches to police assistance in Afghanistan through the lens of strategic culture analysis. It is widely assumed that the Europeans are engaged in establishing a democratic, civilian police force in Afghanistan, while the US aim to transform the Afghan National Police (ANP) into a militarized auxiliary force of the Afghan army. Drawing on Kagan's famous dichotomy of Mars and Venus, the article first outlines the concept of strategic culture analysis with regard to US and European foreign policy strategies. It then describes the historical experiences of Western powers with police assistance in the so-called Third World in order to explore historical patterns of police assistance that have shaped specific strategic cultures of police assistance. Against this background European and US approaches to police assistance are contrasted with the practices of reforming the ANP on the ground. The article concludes that, contrary to the ‘Mars-Venus divide’, the US and the EU both pursue police assistance policies on the ground that produces a highly militarized ANP. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the role the military has played in the democratization processes of three 'young democracies' (Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines) in Southeast Asia. The issue of democratization vis-a-vis the armed forces is even more relevant for Southeast Asia as a region with historically powerful militaries and long traditions of political interventions and rampant human rights abuses. While Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines have historically struggled with deep entrenchments of the military - not only in the political arena, but also within the bureaucracy and the economy - their respective militaries played very different roles within democratization processes. The Indonesian military remained politically neutral after the fall of Suharto, the Philippines witnessed various failed coup attempts by mid-ranking officers, while the Thai military played a key role in the termination of democracy through a coup in 2006. The dominant literature on democratization tries to explain the different outcomes of democratization processes to democracy mainly by focusing on elite choices, new norms and values, shifts in conjunctural situations, the unraveling of the institutional structures of authoritarian regimes and the formation of new, democratic institutional structures. Likewise research on civil-military relations in new democracies has pointed to behavioral change, successful structural reforms (downsizing of the military, capacity-building, withdrawing the military from politics) and civilian leadership in defense and security matters as decisive factors for establishing civilian supremacy. Yet none of these factors fully explains why Indonesia's armed forces remained politically neutral after the fall of Suharto, while Thailand's generals launched a coup in 2006. To answer this question more general political dynamics of democratization processes need to be examined, especially with regard to the formation of new alliances of differing social forces and their impact on traditional power structures, in order to understand continuity and/or change in the military's attitudes towards democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]