Sovereignty and Status in East Asian International Relations

This book provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of a key concept in East Asian security debates, sovereign autonomy, and how it reproduces hierarchy in the regional order. Park argues that contemporary strategic debates in East Asia are based on shared contextual knowledge - that of international hierarchy - reconstructed in the late-nineteenth century. The mechanism that reproduces this lens of hierarchy is domestic legitimacy politics in which embattled political leaders contest the meaning of sovereign autonomy. Park argues that the idea of status seeking has remained embedded in the concept of sovereign autonomy and endures through distinct and alternative security frames that continue to inform contemporary strategic debates in East Asia. This book makes a significant contribution to debates in international relations theory and security studies about autonomy and status, as well as to the now extensive literature on the nature of East Asian regional order.

Introduction. Sovereignty as status: hierarchy and East Asian international relations; 1. How hierarchy endures; 2. Hierarchy and regional order in premodern East Asia; 3. The emergence of sovereign autonomy as a modern security concept; 4. Enduring hierarchy in postwar East Asia; 5. Competing frames of autonomy and domestic legitimacy politics in Japan and South Korea during the Cold War; 6. Contesting autonomy and alliance in post-Cold War East Asia; 7. Which historical legacies matter in East Asian international relations?; Bibliography.

Seo-Hyun Park is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Law, Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. Her research interests include hierarchy and regional orders, national identity politics, state sovereignty, and military alliances, with a regional focus on East Asia.