ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book consists of an exploration of the uses and views, that is, the social construction of the ocean. It examines the study in relation to existing scholarship and introduces the analytical framework that is capable of linking orders and borders to security, development and state legitimacy. The book sheds light on the uses and pertaining social constructions of the ocean put forward by Philip Steinberg. It analyses discourses of maritime politics as they construct and reconstruct modern societal, national and civilizational borders that secure the Chinese, Japanese and South Korean states, respectively. The book also discusses the implications of these constructions of the maritime sphere for the study of international relations of Northeast Asia, and for the conceptualization of change in the modern system of states more generally.
