Search

This article explores the Philippines’ evolving and changing grand strategies in confronting China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. From 2010 to 2016, under the Aquino administration, the Philippines challenged China’s extensive claim over the disputed waters by adopting a hard-balancing approach. In 2016, the succeeding Duterte administration pursued an appeasement policy; in 2018, it shifted to a limited hard balancing policy because of (a) continuing Chinese coercive actions against Armed Forces of the Philippines units in Philippines-occupied land features in the South China Sea and (b) China’s failure to deliver on its promised public investments in the country’s infrastructure building programme. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr initially adhered to his predecessor’s strategy of limited hard-balancing. Seeing no change in China’s stance on the maritime issue, he resorted to a hard-balancing policy. He has vigorously supported the steady modernisation of the Philippine military and strengthened the country’s defence ties with the United States and other like-minded security partners while maintaining cordial diplomatic and economic relations with China. This article argues that the Philippines’ evolving grand strategy has the following elements: (a) Admitting that China’s maritime expansion is the quintessential threat to Philippine national security; (b) pursuing a policy of maintaining the status quo in the West Philippine Sea/South China Sea; (c) acknowledging the urgency to shift the focus of the Philippine military from internal security to territorial defence; and (d) fostering its alliance with the United States and its security partnerships with other American allies and partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the case of Japan's peacebuilding in South Sudan from 2011 to 2017 and asks how Japan's shift towards a more proactive defence posture affects the place of human security in its foreign policy agenda. Using the framework of neoclassical realism, the article argues that human security remains a critical element of Japanese foreign policy despite changes in its strategic orientation because, international predicaments notwithstanding, Japan's foreign policy decision making is still significantly constrained by domestic variables such as state–society relations, elite perceptions, elite consensus, and domestic institutional arrangements. Changes in Japan's overall foreign and security policies do not diminish the importance of human security. Despite the shift to a more assertive foreign policy, Japan still retains the essential features of its diplomacy. External variables influence policymakers' decision making, but domestic variables constrain policy choices and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canadian federal governments regularly try to craft a unique image of Canada in the world; however, the Trudeau government's embrace of feminist foreign policy feels strikingly similar to the late 1990s when human security was embraced. There seems to be a "sameness" in the promotion of a progressive values-based discourse that has transformative potential for Canadian foreign policy. The question is, does this sense of sameness bear out when we dig into the comparison? Drawing on speeches given by government ministers; policy documents, such as the Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP); media; and scholarship, we compare and contrast analyses of the sources of the human security and feminist foreign policy discourses and then identify common critiques. We also examine two significant differences. We find there is consistent Liberal articulation of values-based discourses and policies that have unmet transformative potential. In both cases, style and rhetoric are privileged over transformative change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although the issue of nutrition was long underrepresented in the global health agenda, it regained international attention with the introduction of the Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) framework. A historical review of global nutrition policies over 4 decades illustrates the evolution of nutrition policy themes and the challenges confronted by SUN.Objective: This study reviews major events in global nutrition policy from the 1970s to the SUN movement around 2010 to illustrate the dynamics of global agenda setting for nutrition policy along with implications for the government of Japan.Methods: The events are categorized according to each decade's nutrition paradigm: nutrition and its socioeconomic features in the 1970s, nutrition and community programs in the 1980s, nutrition as a political issue in the 1990s, and nutrition and evidence in the 2000s.Results: This study identified 2 findings: First, the arguments that led to a global consensus on nutrition policy generated paradigm shifts in core ideas, and second, in response to these paradigm shifts, global nutrition policies have changed significantly over time. With regard to Japan, this analysis concludes that the government of Japan can take a greater initiative in the global health community as supporter of SUN by strategically developing a combination of financial, political, and practical approaches to improve global nutrition policy through the concepts of Universal Health Coverage and Human Security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on primary focus group research to explore the differing ways in which UK publics conceptualise and discuss security. The article begins by situating our research within two relevant contemporary scholarly literatures: The first concerns efforts to centre the ‘ordinary’ human as security’s referent; the second, constructivist explorations of security’s discursive (re)production. A second section then introduces six distinct understandings of security that emerged in our empirical research. These organised the term around notions of survival, belonging, hospitality, equality, freedom and insecurity. The article concludes by exploring this heterogeneity and its significance for the study of security more broadly, outlining a number of potential future research avenues in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Security issues in international relations, particularly during the era of the Cold War, were and had been dominated by the realist paradigm which saw the preservation of the state from external threat. Such a conception of security provided a very myopic and narrow understanding of the security problem of states, particularly smaller states. During the past decade, attempts are being made to broaden the security agenda to include not only military but also other sectors: political, economic, societal and ecological. Furthermore, with globalisation and the opening up of the economy has provided scope for cross-border migration and also illicit trade, especially narcotics, terrorism and a dangerous mix of both: narco-terrorism. This article will throw a light on the non-traditional security threats problem and issues of illicit drug trafficking and narco-terrorism in North-east India particularly in the case of Manipur. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article examines the conceptual improvement of human security and its incorporation into Canadian foreign policy. It states that it traces the constricting of Canada's human security agenda from 1996-2006. It mentions that the significances of narrow human security agenda are investigated in three areas of federal policy including trade, climate change, and aboriginal governance. Moreover, the practical implications of the country's human security approach is then showed by studying three central documents of the federal government's policy towards the Arctic such as the "Canada first defence tactics," "Canada's northern strategy," and "Canada's Arctic foreign policy."

In this article the authors examine two set of issues that constrain contemporary peace support operations (PSOs): one centered on the kinds of knowledge prevalent in PSOs and the second involving the organizational structures that characterize them. The authors' aim is to show the deep discursive and structural limitations and contradictions that continue to characterize the actions of armed forces and the dominance of militaristic thinking within PSOs. This article centers on multidimensional peacekeeping marked by emphasizing two main points in regard to the complex nature of such peacekeeping. First, Western military thinking is still dominant in the professional discourse of peacekeeping despite the fact that in many cases it is less relevant to the arenas where it is applied (in weakened or failed states). Second, forces in second-generation peacekeeping missions are by definition a form of hybrid organizations, and therefore conceptual changes in regard to PSOs not only involve the realm of knowledge but also entail practical consequences for the very organizational means used to achieve their aims. The authors' analysis demonstrates the blending, hybridization, and linkages that are an essential part of PSOs as processes that carry both advantages and disadvantages for organizational action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article addresses the problem of global norm diffusion in international relations with particular reference to the implementation of ‘the responsibility to protect’ (R2P) in East Asia. Exposing the limits of previous work on norm localization, we develop the framework of the norm diffusion loop. Rather than understanding norm diffusion as a linear top-down process, we demonstrate that the reception of R2P has evolved in a far more dynamic way that can best be described as a feedback loop. We first look into the processes and causal mechanisms that helped to construct R2P as an emerging transnational soft norm; then we analyse the challenges of diffusing R2P from the global to the regional and domestic levels; and, finally, we examine the variation of norm effects within the same region across states, investigating in particular how R2P has shaped Chinese and Japanese policy responses respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the UN promulgation of the concept of human security in the early 1990s, one of the countries most enthusiastic about the new paradigm has been South Africa. That country has endeavored to reflect human security values in virtually all state activities. This article examines how South Africa has applied the concept to its armed forces. It argues that the military "operationalization" is evident in two key respects: first, in the country's support for Africa's emerging security architecture; and second, in an increasing willingness to commit military forces to external peace operations. However, this application has largely occurred at the national strategic level. It was much less clear in 2007 that any human security ethos was forming within the South African armed forces themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]