Adam P Liff
Biographic Data
| ID | 4134820 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam P Liff |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam P |
| FAMILY NAME | Liff |
| SIGNATURE | LIFF A P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Indiana University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
U.S. Allies and the Taiwan Strait
Against the backdrop of worsening tensions across the Taiwan Strait, this Element analyzes the positions and policies vis-à-vis Taiwan of six major democratic US treaty allies-Japan, Australia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Germany-and the European Union. Historically and today, these US partners have exercised far greater agency supporting Taiwan's international space and cross-Strait stability-in key instances even blazing early trai…
Beyond territorial defense…? The U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances and a ‘Taiwan Strait contingency’
Kishida the Accelerator: Japan's Defense Evolution After Abe
Japan Transformed? The Foreign Policy Legacy of the Abe Government
Throughout his exceptionally long tenure (2012–20), former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō made no secret of his ambition to transform Japan's foreign policy. He was also widely credited with extraordinary individual agency. We critically assess foreign policy shifts under Abe and evaluate the relative significance of individual, domestic, and international factors. Abe had a major impact, but his individual influence should not be exaggerated: his hig…
Reassessing Seoul’s “One China” Policy: South Korea-Taiwan “Unofficial” Relations after 30 Years (1992-2022)
Amid U.S.-led efforts to “internationalize and multilateralize” support for Taiwan in response to mounting pressure from China, the 2021 U.S.-South Korea presidential statement’s unprecedented reference to “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” made global headlines. This study analyzes contemporary Korea-Taiwan relations in historic and comparative perspective, focusing especially on Seoul’s official 1992 position on “One China” and its …
Japan in 2021
For Japan in 2021, COVID-19-related disruption was again the dominant storyline. Its impact transcended societal consequences to affect Japan’s economy, politics, and foreign affairs. It frustrated Japan’s economic recovery and, for the second time in as many years, contributed to a prime minister’s premature resignation. Yet the year also witnessed major positive developments, including the “2020” Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics; an (eventually) succ…
Japan in 2020
Japan’s leaders began 2020 with grand ambitions to make it a historic year. Tokyo was set to welcome the world for the Summer Olympics, Japan’s first since 1964, and Abe Shinzō, the powerful prime minister, planned to realize his party’s 65-year-old dream: revising Japan’s never-amended, US-drafted 1947 constitution. By spring, however, it was clear that COVID-19 had other plans. Despite public health outcomes better than in any other G7 member, …
Unambivalent alignment: Japan’s China strategy, the US alliance, and the ‘hedging’ fallacy
This article examines whether the Asia-Pacific region’s geopolitical vicissitudes are causing Japan to ‘hedge’ against deepening uncertainty and risk through major strategic realignments or diversification of security and economic ties, as the original hedging literature would expect. It examines trends since 2009 in three domains fundamental to identifying whether shifts are underway in Japan’s strategic orientation vis-à-vis China: security pol…
Electoral incentives, policy compromise, and coalition durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in a mixed electoral system
Political parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politic…
China and the US Alliance System
In recent years, scholarship examining US and security allies’ responses to China's rapidly growing power and “assertive” policies towards its neighbours has proliferated. The English-language literature remains relatively one-sided, however. Crucial to understanding the complex forces driving strategic competition in the contemporary Asia-Pacific are comprehensive surveys of how Chinese views are evolving. This study draws extensively on Chinese…
Japan’s National Security Council: Policy Coordination and Political Power
In 2013, Japan established its first-ever National Security Council (NSC) as the leading edge of ambitious reforms to its foreign-policy-relevant institutions. Within weeks, Japan’s new national security tripod was firmly in place: the top-level, political NSC ‘control tower’ as well as Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy and National Security Secretariat. Ever since, the NSC has played a central role in every major aspect of the Japane…
Policy by Other Means: Collective Self-Defense and the Politics of Japan's Postwar Constitutional Reinterpretations
Policy by Other Means:Collective Self-Defense and the Politics of Japan's Postwar Constitutional Reinterpretations Adam P. Liff (bio) keywords japan, security policy, u.s.-japan alliance, collective self-defense, japanese constitution [End Page 139] executive summary This article analyzes Japan's landmark cabinet decision reinterpreting the constitution to allow the limited exercise of collective self-defense (CSD) in both a historical and a cont…
From management crisis to crisis management? Japan’s post-2012 institutional reforms and Sino-Japanese crisis (In)stability
Since 2012, China’s assertion of its sovereignty claim to the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has significantly raised the risk of a potentially escalatory political-military crisis with Japan. As circumstances worsen, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has championed major institutional reforms aimed at centralizing Japanese security policy decision-making and vastly improving crisis management. This article assesses these reforms’ significance…
Whither the Balancers? The Case for a Methodological Reset
Post-Cold War, balancing theory has fallen on “hard times.” A question of crucial importance for 21st-century peace and stability concerns how Asia–Pacific secondary states are responding militarily to China's rise. China's rapid growth, military modernization, and controversial policies vis-à-vis contested space and territories on its periphery make it a prime candidate for counterbalancing behavior. Yet several recent studies claim that seconda…
Installing a Safety on the ‘Loaded Gun’? China’s institutional reforms, National Security Commission and Sino–Japanese crisis (in)stability
As China’s active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military and paramilitary forces, the risk of a Sino–Japanese crisis has reached unprecedented heights. Neither side wants conflict, but the increased frequency and proximity at which vessels and aircraft encounter one another means that overall risk has grown proportionately. Were a miscalculation or even an un…
Japan's Defense Policy: Abe the Evolutionary
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's historic April visit to Washington capped the most significant two-year period in Japan's defense reform in decades. Since his unlikely return as prime minister
Racing toward Tragedy: China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma
In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claim…
The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War, Redux: Liff Responds to Junio
Key Words: Cyber-SecurityCyber WarStrategyBargainingCoercionDeterrenceProliferation
Cyberwar: A New ‘Absolute Weapon’? The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War
This article examines the implications of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities for the character and frequency of war. Consideration of strategic logic, perceptions, and bargaining dynamics finds that the size of the effect of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities on the frequency of war will probably be relatively small. This effect will not be constant across all situations; in some cases the advent of cyberwarfare capabiliti…
Cyberwar: A New ‘Absolute Weapon’? The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War
This article examines the implications of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities for the character and frequency of war. Consideration of strategic logic, perceptions, and bargaining dynamics finds that the size of the effect of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities on the frequency of war will probably be relatively small. This effect will not be constant across all situations; in some cases the advent of cyberwarfare capabiliti…
Electoral incentives, policy compromise, and coalition durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in a mixed electoral system
Political parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politic…
Racing toward Tragedy: China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma
In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claim…
Whither the Balancers? The Case for a Methodological Reset
Post-Cold War, balancing theory has fallen on “hard times.” A question of crucial importance for 21st-century peace and stability concerns how Asia–Pacific secondary states are responding militarily to China's rise. China's rapid growth, military modernization, and controversial policies vis-à-vis contested space and territories on its periphery make it a prime candidate for counterbalancing behavior. Yet several recent studies claim that seconda…
Unambivalent alignment: Japan’s China strategy, the US alliance, and the ‘hedging’ fallacy
This article examines whether the Asia-Pacific region’s geopolitical vicissitudes are causing Japan to ‘hedge’ against deepening uncertainty and risk through major strategic realignments or diversification of security and economic ties, as the original hedging literature would expect. It examines trends since 2009 in three domains fundamental to identifying whether shifts are underway in Japan’s strategic orientation vis-à-vis China: security pol…
Japan's Defense Policy: Abe the Evolutionary
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's historic April visit to Washington capped the most significant two-year period in Japan's defense reform in decades. Since his unlikely return as prime minister
Installing a Safety on the ‘Loaded Gun’? China’s institutional reforms, National Security Commission and Sino–Japanese crisis (in)stability
As China’s active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military and paramilitary forces, the risk of a Sino–Japanese crisis has reached unprecedented heights. Neither side wants conflict, but the increased frequency and proximity at which vessels and aircraft encounter one another means that overall risk has grown proportionately. Were a miscalculation or even an un…
Kishida the Accelerator: Japan's Defense Evolution After Abe
Japan’s National Security Council: Policy Coordination and Political Power
In 2013, Japan established its first-ever National Security Council (NSC) as the leading edge of ambitious reforms to its foreign-policy-relevant institutions. Within weeks, Japan’s new national security tripod was firmly in place: the top-level, political NSC ‘control tower’ as well as Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy and National Security Secretariat. Ever since, the NSC has played a central role in every major aspect of the Japane…
Japan in 2021
For Japan in 2021, COVID-19-related disruption was again the dominant storyline. Its impact transcended societal consequences to affect Japan’s economy, politics, and foreign affairs. It frustrated Japan’s economic recovery and, for the second time in as many years, contributed to a prime minister’s premature resignation. Yet the year also witnessed major positive developments, including the “2020” Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics; an (eventually) succ…
Japan in 2020
Japan’s leaders began 2020 with grand ambitions to make it a historic year. Tokyo was set to welcome the world for the Summer Olympics, Japan’s first since 1964, and Abe Shinzō, the powerful prime minister, planned to realize his party’s 65-year-old dream: revising Japan’s never-amended, US-drafted 1947 constitution. By spring, however, it was clear that COVID-19 had other plans. Despite public health outcomes better than in any other G7 member, …
The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War, Redux: Liff Responds to Junio
Key Words: Cyber-SecurityCyber WarStrategyBargainingCoercionDeterrenceProliferation
Cyberwar: A New ‘Absolute Weapon’? The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War
This article examines the implications of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities for the character and frequency of war. Consideration of strategic logic, perceptions, and bargaining dynamics finds that the size of the effect of the proliferation of cyberwarfare capabilities on the frequency of war will probably be relatively small. This effect will not be constant across all situations; in some cases the advent of cyberwarfare capabiliti…
The Proliferation of Cyberwarfare Capabilities and Interstate War, Redux: Liff Responds to Junio
Key Words: Cyber-SecurityCyber WarStrategyBargainingCoercionDeterrenceProliferation
Racing toward Tragedy: China's Rise, Military Competition in the Asia Pacific, and the Security Dilemma
In the post–Cold War period, scholars have considered the Asia Pacific to be ripe for military competition and conflict. Developments over the past decade have deepened these expectations. Across the region, rising military spending and efforts of various states to bolster their military capabilities appear to have created an increasingly volatile climate, along with potentially vicious cycles of mutual arming and rearming. In this context, claim…
Installing a Safety on the ‘Loaded Gun’? China’s institutional reforms, National Security Commission and Sino–Japanese crisis (in)stability
As China’s active assertion of its claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has increasingly crowded the surrounding waters and airspace with military and paramilitary forces, the risk of a Sino–Japanese crisis has reached unprecedented heights. Neither side wants conflict, but the increased frequency and proximity at which vessels and aircraft encounter one another means that overall risk has grown proportionately. Were a miscalculation or even an un…
Japan's Defense Policy: Abe the Evolutionary
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's historic April visit to Washington capped the most significant two-year period in Japan's defense reform in decades. Since his unlikely return as prime minister
Whither the Balancers? The Case for a Methodological Reset
Post-Cold War, balancing theory has fallen on “hard times.” A question of crucial importance for 21st-century peace and stability concerns how Asia–Pacific secondary states are responding militarily to China's rise. China's rapid growth, military modernization, and controversial policies vis-à-vis contested space and territories on its periphery make it a prime candidate for counterbalancing behavior. Yet several recent studies claim that seconda…
Policy by Other Means: Collective Self-Defense and the Politics of Japan's Postwar Constitutional Reinterpretations
Policy by Other Means:Collective Self-Defense and the Politics of Japan's Postwar Constitutional Reinterpretations Adam P. Liff (bio) keywords japan, security policy, u.s.-japan alliance, collective self-defense, japanese constitution [End Page 139] executive summary This article analyzes Japan's landmark cabinet decision reinterpreting the constitution to allow the limited exercise of collective self-defense (CSD) in both a historical and a cont…
From management crisis to crisis management? Japan’s post-2012 institutional reforms and Sino-Japanese crisis (In)stability
Since 2012, China’s assertion of its sovereignty claim to the contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands has significantly raised the risk of a potentially escalatory political-military crisis with Japan. As circumstances worsen, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has championed major institutional reforms aimed at centralizing Japanese security policy decision-making and vastly improving crisis management. This article assesses these reforms’ significance…
China and the US Alliance System
In recent years, scholarship examining US and security allies’ responses to China's rapidly growing power and “assertive” policies towards its neighbours has proliferated. The English-language literature remains relatively one-sided, however. Crucial to understanding the complex forces driving strategic competition in the contemporary Asia-Pacific are comprehensive surveys of how Chinese views are evolving. This study draws extensively on Chinese…
Japan’s National Security Council: Policy Coordination and Political Power
In 2013, Japan established its first-ever National Security Council (NSC) as the leading edge of ambitious reforms to its foreign-policy-relevant institutions. Within weeks, Japan’s new national security tripod was firmly in place: the top-level, political NSC ‘control tower’ as well as Japan’s first-ever National Security Strategy and National Security Secretariat. Ever since, the NSC has played a central role in every major aspect of the Japane…
Unambivalent alignment: Japan’s China strategy, the US alliance, and the ‘hedging’ fallacy
This article examines whether the Asia-Pacific region’s geopolitical vicissitudes are causing Japan to ‘hedge’ against deepening uncertainty and risk through major strategic realignments or diversification of security and economic ties, as the original hedging literature would expect. It examines trends since 2009 in three domains fundamental to identifying whether shifts are underway in Japan’s strategic orientation vis-à-vis China: security pol…
Electoral incentives, policy compromise, and coalition durability: Japan's LDP–Komeito Government in a mixed electoral system
Political parties’ behavior in coalition formation is commonly explained by their policy-, vote-, and office-seeking incentives. From these perspectives, the 20-year partnership of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its pacifistic Komeito junior coalition partner is an anomalous case. The longevity, closeness, and nature of their unlikely partnership challenges core assumptions in existing theories of coalition politic…
Japan in 2020
Japan’s leaders began 2020 with grand ambitions to make it a historic year. Tokyo was set to welcome the world for the Summer Olympics, Japan’s first since 1964, and Abe Shinzō, the powerful prime minister, planned to realize his party’s 65-year-old dream: revising Japan’s never-amended, US-drafted 1947 constitution. By spring, however, it was clear that COVID-19 had other plans. Despite public health outcomes better than in any other G7 member, …
Japan Transformed? The Foreign Policy Legacy of the Abe Government
Throughout his exceptionally long tenure (2012–20), former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō made no secret of his ambition to transform Japan's foreign policy. He was also widely credited with extraordinary individual agency. We critically assess foreign policy shifts under Abe and evaluate the relative significance of individual, domestic, and international factors. Abe had a major impact, but his individual influence should not be exaggerated: his hig…
Reassessing Seoul’s “One China” Policy: South Korea-Taiwan “Unofficial” Relations after 30 Years (1992-2022)
Amid U.S.-led efforts to “internationalize and multilateralize” support for Taiwan in response to mounting pressure from China, the 2021 U.S.-South Korea presidential statement’s unprecedented reference to “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” made global headlines. This study analyzes contemporary Korea-Taiwan relations in historic and comparative perspective, focusing especially on Seoul’s official 1992 position on “One China” and its …
Japan in 2021
For Japan in 2021, COVID-19-related disruption was again the dominant storyline. Its impact transcended societal consequences to affect Japan’s economy, politics, and foreign affairs. It frustrated Japan’s economic recovery and, for the second time in as many years, contributed to a prime minister’s premature resignation. Yet the year also witnessed major positive developments, including the “2020” Tokyo Olympics/Paralympics; an (eventually) succ…
Kishida the Accelerator: Japan's Defense Evolution After Abe
Beyond territorial defense…? The U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliances and a ‘Taiwan Strait contingency’
U.S. Allies and the Taiwan Strait
Against the backdrop of worsening tensions across the Taiwan Strait, this Element analyzes the positions and policies vis-à-vis Taiwan of six major democratic US treaty allies-Japan, Australia, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, Germany-and the European Union. Historically and today, these US partners have exercised far greater agency supporting Taiwan's international space and cross-Strait stability-in key instances even blazing early trai…
Political science (18 works) · Law (14 works) · International Relations and Foreign Policy (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Economics (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Political economy (8 works) · China (7 works) · Beijing (6 works) · Development economics (6 works)