School of Social and Political Sciences - Theses

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    Insights of the Regional Security Complex Theory towards understanding the role of exogenous factors in regional security: the South China Sea dispute and Southeast Asia
    Sjah, Adlini Ilma Ghaisany ( 2016)
    This thesis investigates the benefits of using the Regional Security Complex (RSC) theory, an analytically eclectic approach, towards understanding the role of external factors in Southeast Asian security relations, particularly in light of the escalation of the South China Sea dispute since 2012. The thesis focuses on answering how does the RSC theory explain the role of exogenous factors in regional relations in Southeast Asia? Through the lens of the RSC theory, this research finds that the main role of the South China Sea dispute, as the primary exogenous aspect, has been to expand Southeast Asia’s regional boundary. As a result, this has provided states in the region with a wider amount of policy options to achieve national and regional security. Meanwhile, Southeast Asia remained a multipolar, anarchic, and thick security regime. Furthermore, it is evident that the role of exogenous aspects towards regional security is conditioned by the region’s endogenous processes. In the case of Southeast Asia, the region’s endogenous norms of ASEAN unity and peaceful resolution have thus far constrained any detrimental impacts of the South China Sea dispute towards regional amity.