Simply another practice among others? analysing the rise of strategic partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region / Jack D. Butcher

Strategic partnerships (SPs) have grown exponentially over the last decade in the Asia-Pacific. However, little remains known in the international security studies (ISS) literature regarding why they have proliferated now and how to best understand what they mean for regional security. In this article, I argue that SPs are best understood as a new security practice in the Asia-Pacific that allows states and multilateral actors to flexibly manage threats, strategic challenges, and interests through cooperation and common norm building. To evidence this argument, I adopt a functional approach to SPs that draws upon the mainstream ISS theories of realism, liberalism and constructivism and synthesises them where possible to draw attention to a wide range of causal factors responsible for them. Analyses guided by eclecticism can provide an all-encompassing tool for explanatory and comparative studies on Asia-Pacific security to draw a broader range of conclusions than any one approach allows for.