International Relations in Southeast Asia: The Struggle for Autonomy (Asia in World Politics)

This balanced, comprehensive guide to Southeast Asian politics offers a sensible but nondogmatic realist approach to the region's international relations. Donald E. Weatherbee lucidly explains the dynamics of the Southeast Asian subsystem as a struggle for autonomy in pursuit of national interests. He explores three important questions, the answers to which will shape the future Southeast Asia. Will democratic regimes transform international relations in Southeast Asia? Will national leaders succeed in reinventing ASEAN as a more effective collaborative mechanism? Finally, how will the evolving Chinese position, balancing and perhaps displacing the United States as Asia's great power, affect Southeast Asia's struggle for autonomy?