Summary |
This book is a compendium of sociopolitical studies of the Asia pacific region following the human security paradigm. The human security perspective is interdisciplinary, holistic, and has a normative bias in favor of the individual. Chapters in this book apply the human security approach to several important processes, institutions, and case studies of the Asia pacific region in order to provide fresh interpretations of important developments and security challenges. As a heuristic device, the book is divided into three parts according to the main level of analysis of the studies included in the section. The first section deals with a macro-level of analysis including regional institutions and international norms. Regional trends are analyzed due to their importance as processes leading toward or away from human security. International norms and how they influence foreign policy is the main topic of the second section of the book. The third and final section of the book explores the relationship between socio-political polarization and violent conflict. Examples and case studies include but are not limited to, Chinese foreign policy, Costa Rica’s pacifism, Thailand’s sociopolitical polarization, the Muslim insurgency in the deep south of Thailand, inter alia.
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