Personalized foreign policy decision-making and economic dependence: a comparative study of Thailand and the Philippines' China policies.

• Author: Zha, Wen

Neorealists disagree on how small states respond to rising powers. Kenneth Waltz argues that secondary states "flock to the weaker side" and balance against the rising power. (1) In contrast, Stephen Walt maintains that "the weaker the state, the more likely it is to bandwagon rather than balance". (2) A similar divergence exists in studies on Southeast Asian states and their responses to China's rising power. Some observers, using different terms, contend that China's rise has raised Southeast Asian states' concerns and pushed them to strengthen their strategic ties with the United States. (3) Conversely, other analysts suggest that Southeast Asian states accommodate, rather than balance against, China. (4) Despite this divergence, Neorealists are united in the belief that factors at the systemic level--more specifically shifts in the distribution of material capabilities--determine the foreign policy behaviour of small states.

The mainstream Neorealist tradition, however, is increasingly challenged by students of International Relations, such as Neoclassical Realists (5) and Liberals. (6) Scholars who study small powers also have pointed out that in small states with weak democratic institutions, individual leaders often exert disproportionate influence on foreign policy decision-making. In his seminal work Pre-Theories and Theories of Foreign Policy, James Rosenau ranks the individual-level variables as the most important in determining small and underdeveloped countries' foreign policy behaviour. (7) Jeanne Hey concurs, arguing that "individual leaders, or a small group of foreign policy elites ... are particularly powerful in postcolonial situations that can enhance the leaders' ability to implement their foreign policy preferences". (8) Robert Rothstein proposes the concept of "personalization of foreign policy". (9) He demonstrates that many less-developed countries (LDC) do not possess strong foreign policy bureaucracies. Leaders who are "usually not locked in by public or bureaucratic pressures" manipulate foreign policy-making to serve their own interests: "Foreign policy tends to be the unfettered preserve of the leader and his friends." (10) Rothstein further contends that personalized foreign policy is more likely to suffer from discontinuities when regime change or power transition occurs. This is simply because policies favoured by a particular leader may not be favoured by his or her successors. (11) In Rothstein's words," [f]or an LDC, personalization diminishes continuities between regimes, lowers predictability". (12)

The reality, however, does not dovetail perfectly with Rothstein's theory. The foreign policies of politically unstable states exhibit remarkable variation in terms of constancy. Illustratively, in both Thailand and the Philippines, individual leaders exert personal influence on foreign policy decision-making, and both countries are fragile democracies. Thailand, however, has maintained a stable and cordial relationship with China despite domestic political turmoil over the past decade. In contrast, in the last few years of the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Philippines' China policy underwent significant changes. Tensions between Manila and Beijing over the South China Sea continued to rise after President Benigno Aquino assumed office in 2010. What explains the continuity in Thailand's China policy and the changes exhibited in the Philippines' China policy? The existing literature does not provide an adequate answer.

Building on Rothstein's theory, this article outlines further possible mechanisms through which personalization of foreign policy may result in discontinuities. Yet, in a departure from the existing literature, this article contends that the effects of foreign policy personalization are contingent upon an intervening variable --the small state's economic dependence on the major power. When economic cooperation with the major power generates more benefits for and creates more vested interests in the small state, their leaders are less likely to politicize the country's foreign policy towards the major power. High-level economic dependence limits small state leaders' room for manoeuvre and thus reduces discontinuities caused by the personalization of foreign policy. On the contrary, when the level of economic dependence is low, the small state's foreign policy towards the major power is more likely to suffer from discontinuities. In this article I use Thailand and the Philippines' China policies to illustrate this point. I contend that neither the shift in the distribution of material capabilities, nor the presence or absence of territorial disputes, sufficiently explains the change and continuity in the two countries' China policy.

This article is divided into four sections. In the first section I examine the existing literature on the foreign policy behaviour of small states. I also explain why the Philippines and Thailand are appropriate case studies. The second section focuses on the Philippines and Thailand's China policy. I argue that the Philippines' foreign policy towards China has undergone a drastic change in recent years, while Thailand's China policy has been remarkably consistent. I also examine alternative explanations and identify their limitations. I go on to explain the variation by examining the two countries' economic dependence on China. The final section discusses this article's implications for policy-related studies.

Personalized Foreign Policy and Policy Discontinuities

Theoretical Background

The post-Cold War era is probably the safest moment in history for small states. As Jeanne Hey suggests, small states were no longer pawns in the competition among the Great Powers. (13) As external military threats become a less pressing issue in foreign policymaking, leaders of small states enjoy more autonomy in foreign policy-making, thus having the freedom to pursue heterogeneous interests. In response to the changes in real world, students of small states' foreign policy behaviour have increasingly challenged the Superpower-centred approach and shifted the focus of their research away from the systemic to the unit level of analysis. Some researchers attach more importance to the role of domestic institutions in determining the foreign policy behaviour of small states, (14) while others view individual level factors, such as elite ideas, (15) as the determinant. In contrast to these two variants of theory, political survival theory adopts an eclectic method and examines how the interplay between the domestic and individual level affects the country's foreign policy decision-making. (16) Political survival theory demonstrates that political conditions peculiar to small and less-developed states provide strong incentives for leaders to employ any means necessary, including the country's foreign policy, to maintain their grip on power. In these countries, leaders are usually faced by a "praetorian society", in which various groups take direct political action, such as protests and coups, to achieve their goals. (17) Michael Barnett and Jack Levy, for instance, argue that because the political survival of these leaders and elites is often at stake--whereas the survival of a state in the international system is not--the former is often given priority in foreign policymaking. (18) Steven David maintains that "the most powerful determinant of Third World alignment behaviour is the rational calculation of Third World leaders as to which outside power is most likely to do what is necessary to keep them in power." (10) In the same vein, Kuik Cheng-Chwee's recent research on Malaysia and Singapore also illustrates that small states' policies towards major powers should be understood in the context of regime legitimization. (20)

In politically unstable states, domestic threats determine that insecure leaders may not enjoy the luxury to follow their idiosyncrasies as a paramount leader in an authoritarian regime. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the individual level of analysis becomes irrelevant. Domestic institutions, formal or informal, do not stipulate substantive foreign policy. Leaders are still able to "place their personal imprint on a set of predetermined foreign policy choices". (21) This tendency is particularly obvious in small states with weak democratic institutions. Without sufficient checks and balances on power, leaders gain the capability to manipulate foreign policy and employ it as an important tool in their political struggle. (22) More specifically, in comparison to developed countries, political parties in small and politically unstable states often lack an ideological basis and are organized around a few, sometimes even one, political figure. (23) Individual leaders, free of ideological and other constraints imposed by political parties, gain greater autonomy in formulating foreign policy. Additionally, many leaders in small and politically unstable states maintain their rule through patronage and nepotism. The appointment of diplomats becomes a means through which national leaders reward their political allies. Appointees often lack foreign service experience and the right qualifications. Patron-client relationships as such ensure that the leaders' preferred foreign policy is chosen and implemented. (24) Sometimes foreign policy bureaucracies are simply bypassed in the decision-making process. The result is the personalization of foreign policy, where individual leaders exert disproportionate influence on foreign policy-making and employ foreign policy to serve their own political and economic interests.

In the context of political instability, personalized foreign policy is likely to suffer from discontinuities for two reasons. Firstly, decisions made by individual rulers are not as legitimate as those made through institutional channels, such as foreign affairs bureaucracies, and are...