From role conception to role performance : how asymmetric economic dependence on China conditions the foreign behaviors of Indo - Pacific middle powers through the domestic political stability imperatives

Abstract

Why do some Indo-Pacific Middle Powers that has asymmetric economic dependence on China exhibit foreign policy incoherence, while other similar states with the same structural condition do not? To examine this empirical puzzle, this paper utilizes the theoretical approach of Role Theory in Foreign Policy Analysis and proposes the new concept of Role Incoherence, which is the phenomena in which a state enacts its role performance (i.e. its actual foreign policy behaviors) differently from what its national role conception would theoretically suggested, due to the constraint of an intra-role factor. Using comparative and qualitative methods, this paper has two main arguments. First, through the macro-analysis comparative case studies combining with within-case outcome-explaining process-tracing, with Indonesia and Viet Nam as the two positive cases of Role Incoherence, it is suggested that asymmetric economic dependence on China can act as a latent, structural causal-factor that when examined during the critical junctures of bilateral tension between each respective middle power and China, this factor constrains the enactment of these states' national role conception through the Political Risk Recalculation mechanism to preserve their domestic political stability. Secondly, with the additional examination of a negative case of Role Incoherence – Australia, this research identifies two important contextual conditions within the Indo-Pacific Middle Powers which are required for the above-mentioned causal relationship to take effect, including: (i) No formal alliance with another Hegemonic Power; and more importantly (ii) The domestic political stability of the Middle Power is heavily anchored on performance-based legitimacy. In conclusion, future research may test whether this proposed context-based causal relation and mechanism also extends to a larger number of cases of Indo-Pacific Middle Powers, such as South Korea, and whether the theoretical framework can be portable to other Middle Powers navigating asymmetric economic relations with their economically dominant regional Hegemonic Powers, such as in South Asia or South America.