The Philippines’ Changing Foreign Policy Strategy toward China and the United States: the impact of domestic political factors on the foreign policy behaviour of weaker states

Due to their limited relative power and material capabilities, neorealism posits that weaker states can either pursue a balancing or bandwagoning strategy against the revisionist power threat. However, Southeast Asian states are not behaving as the neorealist expectations suggest. Instead, hedging explains why these smaller states opt for middle-ground strategies, but this framework fails to account for sudden shifts in foreign policy. Consequently, there is still no clear consensus on what explains varying foreign policy behaviour in weaker Southeast Asian states under similar systemic pressures from US-China competition. To fill this gap, this thesis seeks to answer the research question: ‘How do domestic political factors contribute to a change in a weaker state’s foreign policy strategy toward competing great powers?’ The thesis approaches this question by using Schweller’s (2006) neoclassical realist theory of underbalancing behaviour which provides a model of four intervening...Show moreDue to their limited relative power and material capabilities, neorealism posits that weaker states can either pursue a balancing or bandwagoning strategy against the revisionist power threat. However, Southeast Asian states are not behaving as the neorealist expectations suggest. Instead, hedging explains why these smaller states opt for middle-ground strategies, but this framework fails to account for sudden shifts in foreign policy. Consequently, there is still no clear consensus on what explains varying foreign policy behaviour in weaker Southeast Asian states under similar systemic pressures from US-China competition. To fill this gap, this thesis seeks to answer the research question: ‘How do domestic political factors contribute to a change in a weaker state’s foreign policy strategy toward competing great powers?’ The thesis approaches this question by using Schweller’s (2006) neoclassical realist theory of underbalancing behaviour which provides a model of four intervening domestic-level factors to explain strategic changes. The four domestic-level factors: elite consensus, elite cohesion, societal cohesion, and government vulnerability are applied to a single case study of the Philippines under President Duterte and analysed through archival analysis and process tracing. The analysis demonstrates that the four domestic political factors had influenced the Philippines’ decision to restrengthen their US alliance and distance themselves from further alignment with China to an extent. It further found government vulnerability and social cohesion to be the most significant explanatory factors. These findings contribute to a better understanding of weaker state foreign policy behaviour amid great power rivalry and underlines the importance of a domestic-level analysis.Show less

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The Philippines’ Changing Foreign Policy Strategy toward China and the United States: the impact of domestic political factors on the foreign policy behaviour of weaker states