Beyond the State as “Black Box”: Anti-Base Movements

Abstract

Activists, Alliances, and Anti-U.S. Base Protests. By Yeo Andrew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. 222 pp., $27.99 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-521-17556-2). Methodology determines the direction of science (whether natural or social) and its conclusions. The book under review—an ambitious attempt to link the very different approaches of international relations with studies of social movements—is difficult to position in the literature since it challenges methodological conventions. This is what makes it so interesting and useful. Andrew Yeo uses as case studies the US bases in the Philippines, Japan, Ecuador, Italy, and South Korea to investigate why some antibase activist undertakings succeed and others fail. Related issues are how host governments balance domestic tension with international pressure from the United States on foreign policy issues and how international security relations affect host government responses to antibase pressure. Some context illuminates what is at stake and why this book carries great import. The United States has about 900 overseas bases in 45 countries, by far the largest international footprint of any state. These bases provide strategic deterrence, territorial control, logistics and transportation capabilities, and alliance support. At these facilities, munitions are stored, and equipment and troops prepositioned. From the point of view of the host state polity, bases provide jobs, boost the local economy, and establish relations of solidarity with the sending state. More negatively, bases cause “externalities,” such as noise, environmental pollution, crime, accidents, and prostitution. Two basic questions …