An impressive economic growth of China and its ascendancy on the world stage has had great implications for the small states of Southeast Asia.Many scholars maintain that developing small states may choose bandwagoning,a foreign policy strategy of aligning with rising power,in hope of pursuing both the protection when states encounter threats and other benefits for the development of the country.This thesis examines the interaction between rising power and small state,as China and Cambodia being the model.While inspired by most popular theories of international relations and foreign policy analysis,this study builds off on an integrating synthetic framework,in which I argue that its spectrums cover the factors that can thoroughly explain the complexities of interaction between rising power and small state in general and Cambodian's foreign policy behavior in particular.By using a single case study of Cambodia's stance on South China Sea territorial disputes,this thesis demonstrates a strong relationship between a state's foreign policy intentions and cognitive and psychological factors of state leaders that in turn influencing foreign policy while internal structural factors play a smaller role in foreign policy formulation towards rising power when facing grave threats.Therefore,this thesis' s main argument is that internal structural actors share small contributions in influencing foreign policy when geopolitical interests/threats are greater.Finally,this thesis hopes to academically contribute to the scholarship of international relations as well as small state's foreign policy behavior. |