Regional perspectives on global security

Leads: ANU, Tokyo, Copenhagen and NUS

Overview

The Security Project seeks to address the dissonance that has arisen between the state of the field in Security Studies, and the actual dynamics of security issues in the contemporary world. In particular, the rise of non-state actors, the increasingly global scope and ramifications of regional security policy, and the evolving dynamics and centrality of Northeast Asia in global security are seriously challenging traditional security studies approaches.

Conscious of the pivotal role of ‘regions' in defining security and security policy, this project seeks to bring together the leading and most promising researchers in the field of security, with key regional policy-makers and analysts. Together, these analysts and practitioners will identify new approaches to security policy and security studies. This project, under development since 2006, will develop new perspectives on how regional entities can contribute to the resolution of global security issues.

This project investigates international security as it expands and deepens within the regional-global nexus through four main sub-projects, namely: international security theory, human security, order-building and rising powers, and asymmetrical security. Researches under this project seek to answer two core questions, particularly:

1. Is existing theoretical and empirical research applicable to understanding ongoing and rapid changes in international security or does such research inherently fall short in anticipating and responding to such change?
2. How can inter-regional perspectives enhance security policy formation at the global level?

Sub-Projects

Multidisciplinary Approaches to International Security Theory

Lead: University of Copenhagen (Professor Ole Wæver)

This research develops theory that addresses new threats, responses to those threats and the need to broaden the ‘language of security' in ways that will facilitate better policy formulation.

Human Security

Lead: University of Tokyo (Professor Kiichi Fujiwara)

This research enquires on how security must increasingly be perceived as a ‘people-oriented' issue rather than merely a problem reflecting predominantly state-centric survival.

Order-Building and Rising Powers

Lead: Australian National University (Professor William Tow)

This research works on how rising powers will shape regional dynamics of global power transitions and what collective policy approaches will be most effective in responding to such shifts.

Asymmetrical Security

Lead: National University of Singapore (Professor Bilveer Singh)

This research enquires into how sub-state threats and conflicts impact upon both regional and global security theory and policy-planning.

Past Workshops

• Emerging Australia-Japan Security Cooperation: A Catalyst for Strategic Rivalry or Regional Order-Building?, 31 March – 3 April 2008, ANU 
• Exploring New Dimensions of Asymmetrical Security, 1 October 2008, NUS

Publications

• Assessing the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue
  National Bureau of Asian Research - Special Report #16, December 2008
  http://www.nbr.org/Publications/issue.aspx?id=01dce732-54b8-423e-9973-a87ee499d4d6