Perceptions Matter: A Perceptual Neoclassical Realist Approach to Foreign Policy in the Asia-Pacific

Abstract

Neoclassical realism (NCR) has become one of the most influential realist frameworks for the study of foreign policy. Its core insight is that foreign policy is shaped not only by the distribution of power in the international system, but also by how systemic pressures are filtered through domestic and unit-level variables. Despite its growing influence, however, NCR faces two related criticisms. The first concerns its theoretical identity. Critics argue that NCR risks becoming an ad hoc or post hoc framework because it incorporates a wide range of domestic variables without sufficiently specifying why particular variables are selected and how they operate. The second concerns its empirical application, especially in studies of Asia-Pacific foreign policy. Domestic intervening variables are often invoked but insufficiently theorized. This panel addresses these concerns by developing a perceptual neoclassical realist (PNCR) approach to foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. The central premise of PNCR is that systemic pressures do not directly determine foreign policy choices. They must first be interpreted by leaders and decision-makers. Leaders’ perceptions, therefore, serve as a crucial transmission belt between the international system and foreign policy behavior. While existing NCR scholarship has examined a variety of domestic variables—including strategic culture, domestic institutions, state-society relations, leader images, and regime security—this panel argues that perception deserves more explicit and systematic theoretical attention. Compared with many other intervening variables, leaders’ perceptions have a more immediate cognitive connection to decision-making. Drawing on political psychology, the panel examines how perceptions shape the ways leaders identify threats, assess opportunities, evaluate risks, interpret intentions, and choose among policy options. This does not mean that perceptions are purely idiosyncratic or detached from material structures. On the contrary, PNCR remains realist because it locates leaders’ perceptions within the constraints and incentives generated by the international system. Leaders perceive power, threat, uncertainty, vulnerability, opportunity, and risk under conditions of anarchy. Yet similar systemic pressures may be interpreted differently by different leaders, depending on their cognitive frames, historical analogies, ideological commitments, domestic political incentives, and prior experiences. This helps explain why states facing broadly similar external pressures may adopt different foreign policy responses, and why the same state may respond differently across time under different leaderships or domestic conditions. The panel develops, tests, and refines the PNCR approach through a set of theoretically informed and empirically grounded studies of Asia-Pacific foreign policy. It brings together scholars working on different countries, cases, and foreign policy puzzles across the region to examine how leaders and decision-makers perceive systemic pressures and how these perceptions shape foreign policy behavior under varying domestic conditions. Beyond its contribution to the conference, the panel is designed as the foundation for a future journal special issue. Selected papers will be revised after the conference into a coherent collection that advances NCR theory, contributes to foreign policy analysis, and offers empirically rich insights into foreign policy variation across the Asia-Pacific.

Title	Details
Opportunity and Insecurity: Xi-era Perceptions of Systemic Duality and China’s Economic-Security Foreign Policy	View Paper Details
Same Pressure, Different Responses Leader Perceptions and the Non-Linear Evolution of Japan’s Security Policy, 2011–2025	View Paper Details
Neoclassical Realism under Leadership Change: Indonesia’s China Policy under Prabowo	View Paper Details
Political Ideology, Threat Perception, and South Korea's Selective Engagement: A Perceptual Neoclassical Realist Explanation	View Paper Details
Elite Perceptions of Threats and Alliances: Explaining Marcos Jr.’s Hard Balancing in the South China Sea	View Paper Details