Domestic Politics and Nationalism in East Asian Security Randall L. Schweller Ohio State University Department of Political Science 2140 Derby Hall Columbus, Ohio 43210 Prepared for the conference on "China, the United States, and the East Asian Order: Managing Instability" Center for International Strategic Studies, Peking University Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University May 2014 Oslo, Norway 0
A world in transition is a deeply uncertain one for both structural and motivational reasons. Emergent systems tend to encounter destabilizing and unpredictable power shifts among the system's most powerful actors; they also experience changing state motivations associated with relative power positions in flux.1 Regarding intentions, even if a reasonable amount of certainty could be achieved regarding the present motivations of the rising powers (in today's world, China, India, and Brazil) and those of the incumbents (the United States, European Union, and Japan), there is no guarantee that current intentions will remain stable over time. Just as we expect people who go from rags to riches or vice versa to change their ambitions, rising and declining powers can be expected to expand or contract their goals as power reshuffles at the top of the international pecking order. Both sources of uncertainty-structural uncertainty about the global distribution of capabilities and motivational uncertainty about the goals of rising and established major powers-spring from the taproot of domestic politics. With respect to structural uncertainty, the trajectory of a state's power crucially depends on the kinds of strategies its leaders embrace to mobilize resources (financial, productive, and human) for purposes of national security and economic growth. There is a long tradition within international relations (IR) scholarship of taking into account domestic as well as material factors in the specification of national power. Kenneth Waltz himself includes political stability and competence in his list of key capabilities that determine national rankings within the global hierarchy of power.2 In terms of motivational uncertainty, variance in state preferences across time and space has long been attributed to domestic politics. Even the purest of systemic theories acknowledge a range of state goals and policies. Sometimes these divergences are explained by reference to system structure: states differently situated within the international system hold dissimilar aims and respond differently to 1
comparable external incentives. Among similarly situated states, however, differences in states goals and responses to external cues are explained not by international structure but rather by domestic politics. Specifically, national political processes serve as "imperfect" transmission belts (intervening variables) that introduce deviations (residual variance) from the predictions of systemic theory regarding rational responses to external constraints and opportunities.3 Theories of domestic politics locate the determinants of foreign policy behavior and the national interest within the state itself. They are typically stories about how internal social and political pressures hold sway over the administrative and decision- making apparatuses of the state, causing a variety of state actions and goals that may or may not be responses to external stimuli. Variation in state goals is also a