Saadia M. Pekkanen’s research while affiliated with University of Mary Washington and other places

The Oxford Handbook on Space Security focuses on the interaction between space technology and international and national security processes. This volume theorizes the development and governance of space security and analyzes the specific pressure points currently challenging that regime. Space security is a complex assemblage of societal risks and benefits that result from space-based capabilities and is currently in a period of transformation as innovative processes are rapidly changing the underlying assumptions about stability in the space domain. This volume takes an analytically eclectic approach to assess space security from an international relations (IR) theory perspective. It builds an understanding of space security, infused with the theory and practice of IR and advances analysis of key states and regions as well as specific capabilities. It draws on the expertise of a set of scholars who bring a range of analytical and theoretical perspectives to bear on the empirical changes affecting space security. Space security is currently in a period of great transition as new technologies are emerging and states openly pursue counterspace capabilities. This volume brings together scholarship from a group of leading experts that helps to explain how these contemporary changes will affect future security in, from, and through space.

The Oxford Handbook on Space Security focuses on the interaction between space technology and international and national security processes. This volume theorizes the development and governance of space security and analyzes the specific pressure points currently challenging that regime. Space security is a complex assemblage of societal risks and benefits that result from space-based capabilities and is currently in a period of transformation as innovative processes are rapidly changing the underlying assumptions about stability in the space domain. This volume takes an analytically eclectic approach to assess space security from an international relations (IR) theory perspective. It builds an understanding of space security, infused with the theory and practice of IR and advances analysis of key states and regions as well as specific capabilities. It draws on the expertise of a set of scholars who bring a range of analytical and theoretical perspectives to bear on the empirical changes affecting space security. Space security is currently in a period of great transition as new technologies are emerging and states openly pursue counterspace capabilities. This volume brings together scholarship from a group of leading experts that helps to explain how these contemporary changes will affect future security in, from, and through space.

The Oxford Handbook on Space Security focuses on the interaction between space technology and international and national security processes. This volume theorizes the development and governance of space security and analyzes the specific pressure points currently challenging that regime. Space security is a complex assemblage of societal risks and benefits that result from space-based capabilities and is currently in a period of transformation as innovative processes are rapidly changing the underlying assumptions about stability in the space domain. This volume takes an analytically eclectic approach to assess space security from an international relations (IR) theory perspective. It builds an understanding of space security, infused with the theory and practice of IR and advances analysis of key states and regions as well as specific capabilities. It draws on the expertise of a set of scholars who bring a range of analytical and theoretical perspectives to bear on the empirical changes affecting space security. Space security is currently in a period of great transition as new technologies are emerging and states openly pursue counterspace capabilities. This volume brings together scholarship from a group of leading experts that helps to explain how these contemporary changes will affect future security in, from, and through space.

The Oxford Handbook on Space Security focuses on the interaction between space technology and international and national security processes. This volume theorizes the development and governance of space security and analyzes the specific pressure points currently challenging that regime. Space security is a complex assemblage of societal risks and benefits that result from space-based capabilities and is currently in a period of transformation as innovative processes are rapidly changing the underlying assumptions about stability in the space domain. This volume takes an analytically eclectic approach to assess space security from an international relations (IR) theory perspective. It builds an understanding of space security, infused with the theory and practice of IR and advances analysis of key states and regions as well as specific capabilities. It draws on the expertise of a set of scholars who bring a range of analytical and theoretical perspectives to bear on the empirical changes affecting space security. Space security is currently in a period of great transition as new technologies are emerging and states openly pursue counterspace capabilities. This volume brings together scholarship from a group of leading experts that helps to explain how these contemporary changes will affect future security in, from, and through space.

This article probes Japan’s space diplomacy in a world returned to great power competition. Today, Japan’s space diplomacy manifests in a wide variety of contexts at the global, regional and bilateral levels. The principal argument is that the Japanese state is responding to gathering external threats through diplomacy that communicates, persuades and bargains in the country’s science, economic and military space interests. This proactive positioning allows Japan to situate its advanced technologies in the context of fierce economic competition, cultivate an image as a pacifist and responsible actor in the turbulent international order, and set pragmatic expectations about building peaceful prospects in outer space.

A quantum leap is under way in space as a domain of human activity. The global space economy has rapidly reached almost USD 450 billion in size and is projected to grow to over USD 1 trillion by the 2040s. There are hundreds of actors involved, from space agencies to private companies to start-ups. Over 70 countries have space programmes and 14 have launch capabilities. These developments have involved intense transnational and international co-operation and competition, across both the public and private sectors. With such rapid changes underway, this article takes stock of how these developments impact international relations. Overall, this is the first special issue in the field of international relations to use theories of diplomacy to bring to light the various ways in which experts, scientists, astronauts, space enthusiasts and professional diplomats, among others, have shaped the formal and informal interactions among states in this key area of foreign policy.

Japan, and its alliance with the USA, is central to the unfolding politics of the new space race. This essay draws attention to the ways the Japanese state has positioned its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests related to space in the context of the US–Japan alliance. It probes the material and ideational elements that are driving the Japanese state to closer alignment with its formal ally in the military, civilian, and commercial space domains. But while all these realities bode well for alliance collaboration, there are reasons to be cautious. While the Japanese state has proactively aligned its space policy and postures with the USA, it is not forever caught in the US orbit. Given the uncertain fate of US domestic politics that bears on great power competition, Japan is also prudently positioning for how the status of its ally may evolve. This is what complicates straightforward projections about alliance cooperation and balance of power politics in the unfolding international space order.

The global commons—domains beyond the sovereign jurisdiction of any single state but to which all states have access—are essential to the stability and prosperity of the international order. In addition to the high seas, outer space, the atmosphere, and Antarctica, which are defined as global commons by international law, analysts have also suggested that other domains such as cyberspace may also qualify as potential commons. These domains provide essential public goods such as trade routes, transportation and communication networks, fish stocks, satellite imagery, global positioning, and e-commerce infrastructure that benefit countries around the world. To successfully manage the resources of the global commons and ensure open access to their spaces, effective governance structures must exist to accommodate and integrate the interests and responsibilities of state and non-state actors. Consequently, states have tried to come to agreements in each domain about how to enable broad access, avoid conflict, and enable cooperation. Over time, these discussions have resulted in the creation for each domain of a “regime,” a set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge (see Box 1). These regimes can take shape in the form of international law, national law, local regulations, private standards, and institutional bodies. They differ dramatically in maturity and complexity: the governance regime of the oceans has developed over the course of centuries, while the rules and norms of cyberspace have only had a few decades to coalesce. However, all these regimes attempt to solve similar dilemmas surrounding shared access and resources.