Building Alliances
Emerging Countries And International Political Economy: The Debate on BRICS and the New Global Governance
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Gabriel Rached
Since 2009, BRICS countries have been seeking to develop coordinated strategies for a new platform for economic cooperation between them, with the aim of reaching a higher level of development accompanied by a repositioning in the international arena. Despite all the differences, these countries have some elements and aspirations that unite them and the challenge is to design a common platform to gain space and greater insertion from the international perspective. At this moment, the questions are posed as follows: in a world in constant transformation, in which can be perceived the loss of economic and political power of the traditional powers (especially the United States and Europe), how it would be possible to think on the insertion of the so-called "emerging countries"? How could this process be dynamic with the set of international institutions in force? Would the New Development Bank (NDB - BRICS Bank) play a relevant role in this context? From this perspective, this paper intends to discuss how to rethink the insertion of the BRICS countries in the international scenario - taking into consideration the current dynamics face to the aspirations of these countries from the point of view of the international institutions. In order to execute it, the idea is to reflect upon these points, using a broad and critical approach to the thematic looking towards its impacts on the New Global Governance.
America’s New Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Strategy: A Plan to Preserve Maritime Hegemony?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elizabeth Larus
This paper examines America’s new "Indo-Pacific" strategy for maritime security. The US 2017 National Security Strategy indicates that the Indo-Pacific region is America’s foremost foreign and security policy priority. The US vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific underscores the importance of regional cooperation with countries in the South China Sea to counter China’s maritime activities there. The study seeks to answer the question of whether US hegemony is declining or enduring. It analyzes US partnerships with regional allies and partners as it competes with China for maritime supremacy. It examines US efforts to work with Australia, India, and Japan in a ‘Strategic Quad,’ as well as with Southeast Asian partners Indonesia and Vietnam, to challenge China’s expanding maritime assertiveness. The paper considers the following questions: What capacity-building measures must the United States and its regional partners take to address potential challenges across the region? How can naval diplomacy build greater transparency, reduce the risk of miscalculation or conflict, and promote shared maritime rules of the road? How can America and its allies strengthen regional security institutions and encourage the development of an open and effective regional security architecture?
Reviving the Study of African Foreign Policy at a Time of Emerging Multipolarity: The Search for African-centred Knowledge, African Agency, and Sources of Culture
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Paul Bischoff
African foreign policies form a part of the foreign policies of Southern states and are to be seen on their own terms. This, in a context, where an unproblematic acceptance of the models developed for and out of the experiences of Western states has been the norm. Theory developed for a particular historical and developmental context in Europe or America cannot automatically translate into generalisations for regions of the South. Knowledge needs rather to contribute to a global understanding of a multiplex world of international relations. With an IR often shaped by Western and US concerns, an interpretive approach can help explain how, beyond the West, at a local level, foreign policy agency happens. Apart from considering its own material conditions, the individual African state actor makes foreign policy by drawing on norm promoting agents in specific and generalised policy-making environments. This paper explores norm promoting agents situated within social, political, bureaucratic, intellectual, security and business contexts found at various levels of organised society and that of the ‘peri-state’, the state itself, the formal and informal region, as well as the international.
Globalization with Eurasian Characteristics
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Tunc Aybak
The financial crisis in 2008 has exposed the weaknesses of neo-liberal globalization driven by Euro-Atlantic powers. It is almost certain that globalization will now be increasingly driven by the Eurasian led initiatives such as Silk Road and Eurasian regional integration projects. The success of this globalization will depend on the nature and the future of Chinese-Russian relations as well as the convergence of their grand strategies of Eurasian globalization. This paper will addresses the following questions: What are the key characteristics of this model in this new phase of Eurasian globalization? What is the ideology of Eurasianism? To what extent do Chinese and Russian geopolitical perceptions of Eurasia converge or diverge? Will Russian and Chinese grand strategies of Eurasian integration inevitably be converging or colliding?
