CfP EUROSEAS 2015 Panel: “Security Governance in Southeast Asia and role of the United States – Continuity and Change”

Call for Papers
8th EuroSEAS Conference, Vienna
August 11-14, 2015

Panel “Security Governance in Southeast Asia and role of the United States – Continuity and Change”

Convener:

Howard Loewen, Department of Political Science, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, howard.loewen@fau.de

Description of Panel

The current Southeast Asian security governance system consists of bilateral and multilateral ele­ments. On the bilateral level „traditional“ security alliances between the United States and specific Southeast Asian states such as the Philippines and Thailand are located. Apart from these established security alliances less-binding links such as the security partnership between Singapore and the US but also emerging relationships with countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia are to be found. Traditional allies and potential new partners of the US in Southeast Asia perceive their respective security links inter alia as a leverage to counterbalance the rise of China while having cooperative economic relationships with it. Security institutions or fora such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) and the ADMM Plus constitute the multilateral component of this architecture or security governance system. The United States´ willingness to complement its bilateral engagement is exemplified by its accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2009 and to the East Asia Summit in 2010, the accreditation of David Carden as America´s first ambassador to ASEAN in 2011 and US-ASEAN Summit Meetings held in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2013.

Against this background this panel invites presentations that seek to answer the following question:

How can we explain aspects of change and continuity of the Southeast Asian regional security governance system on the bilateral and multilateral level?

From this central question one can derive the following subset of questions:

How do systemic factors (geopolitics, rise of China, pivot of the US) contribute to the current Security Architecture? How do internal factors of the Southeast Asian states matter for their foreign security policy? Will China supersede the USA in its role as predominant power in this architecture and how would it look like? What roles can and do external players such as India and the EU want to play in this governance system?

Specific topics:

1. Bilateral Security Cooperation: Traditional Alliances with the US (USA-Philippines, Thailand-USA)
2. Bilateral Security Cooperation: New Partners? (USA-Malaysia, USA-Singapore; USA-Vietnam)
3. Multilateral Security Cooperation between Southeast Asia and the US (USA-ASEAN, USA-ARF, USA-EAS)
4. Southeast Asian Security Governance and the EU, India and China

Deadline for abstract submission: 15 February 2015.

I am looking forward to receiving an abstract of your presentation.

For more information please visit: http://www.euroseas.org/content/conference