The Dynamics of Interstate Relations and the South China Sea

The value of inductive theorising lies in drawing attention to a variety of considerations that rarely interact in deductive scholarship, such as bureaucratic politics, two-level games, cognitive psychology, and the importance of competence with procedural rules as both a soft-power and productive-power resource.

Inductive theorising enables us to provide compelling explanations for China’s embrace of assertive unilateralism, the outcome of the Tribunal’s deliberations, and China’s awkward effort to comply with an adverse ruling as far as possible while pretending that it had lost nothing.

Weaving these elements together rigorously in a deductive mode would be impossible because deductive scholarship rarely considers the variety of considerations that inductive theorising brings to light.

The highest of high politics issue mentioned in the text is the dynamics of interstate relations.

Some of the considerations that rarely interact in deductive scholarship are bureaucratic politics, two-level games, cognitive psychology, and the importance of competence with procedural rules as both a soft-power and productive-power resource.