Identity and Security

The dissertation explores the relationship between identity and international security, and tests the effect of the former on the latter by analyzing a set of puzzling phenomena in East Asia--the emergence of mutual threat perception in Sino-Japanese relations; increasingly conflictual relations between Korea and Japan after Korea's democratization; the establishment of a regional human rights mechanism by ASEAN; and the settlement of key territorial disputes by Southeast Asian nations. Coupled with the diverging frequency of militarized interstate disputes between both regions, these phenomena suggest that Northeast Asia (NEA) has become a region of conflict with high tensions, while Southeast Asia (SEA) has increasingly developed into a region of peace with decreasing tension.