The Politics of Pacific Ocean Conservation
Memo #395 By: Justin Alger – alger.justinw [at] gmail.com and Peter Dauvergne – peterdau [at] mail.ubc.ca Since 2006, states have established 18 large marine protected areas (MPAs) exceeding 200,000km2, most of which are located throughout the Pacific. This development represents the emergence of a new global norm of large MPAs in marine conservation. The emergence of this norm was not […]
Why should we care about transnational social capital in development cooperation?
Memo #386 By: Rennie J. Moon – rennie.moon [at] yonsei.ac.kr and Gi-Wook Shin – gwshin [at] stanford.edu Higher education aid as transnational social capital Current approaches to higher education aid have focused either on developing human resources or on building social capital in the local context. For instance, donor countries offer various programs to train […]
A Pariah No More: How Over-reliance on China Spurred Myanmar’s Reforms
Memo #380 By: Jonathan T. Chow – jchow [at] umac.mo and Leif-Eric Easley – easley [at] post.harvard.edu How Over-reliance on China Spurred Myanmar’s Reforms In late 2010, Myanmar’s repressive military junta transformed itself into a nominally civilian government, over two decades after it had seized power. Upon becoming president in early 2011, former general Thein Sein unexpectedly launched wide-ranging […]
Hedging without coordination? The Cambodian Government’s Policies Toward Vietnam
Memo #369 By: Thearith Leng – thearithleng2011 [at] gmail.com Hedging, a mix of bandwagoning (political deference) and balancing (varying forms of defiance), has become a popular concept to explain how small Southeast Asian states manage their relations with larger countries. Cambodia’s policies toward its more powerful neighbor, Vietnam, display such a mixed approach. But in […]
Where are the voices and the interests of rural Lao women in ASEAN?
Memo #356 By Carly Teng – c.teng [at] alumni.ubc.ca The primary focus of ASEAN has been on economic development, with some attempts since 2014 to include “women’s economic empowerment” through support of female entrepreneurship in its member countries. ASEAN’s recognition of the need for women’s economic empowerment is necessary, but not sufficient to advance women’s rights, especially […]
Lingua Franca?: Francophone scholarship on the Asia-Pacific
Memo #349 By: Gisèle Yasmeen – gisele.yasmeen [at] ubc.ca While English is often thought of as the international academic lingua franca, there is significant scholarship on Asia in other languages, including French. French-language scholarship on the Asia-Pacific should be valued, particularly in Canada – a bilingual country home to a number of French-speaking Asianists who […]
Russia’s New Pivot to Asia: The Emergence of a New Geopolitics
Memo #341 By Alexander Korolev – akorolev [at] nus.edu.sg Many observers have recently registered a new shift in Russia’s foreign policy, labelling it, “pivot to Asia.” President Putin himself announced that “Russia’s reorientation toward the Pacific Ocean and the dynamic development in all our [Russia’s] eastern territories are our priority for the whole 21st century.” […]
AEC 2015: Stop Talking to Other Governments, Start Talking to Firms
Memo #325 By Cesi Cruz – cesi.cruz [at] gmail.com and Benjamin A.T. Graham – benjamin.a.graham [at] usc.edu How can the governments in ASEAN help businesses prepare for the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) scheduled to start in 2015? Foreign firms operating in the Philippines are preparing for the changes, but what help do they want from […]
Will the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) transform Southeast Asian economies in 2015?
Memo #322 By Kai Ostwald – kai.ostwald [at] ubc.ca and Krislert Samphantharak – krislert [at] ucsd.edu December 31, 2015 is the launch date of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), possibly the most ambitious undertaking to date of the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Envisioned as the culmination of decades-old economic integration efforts to […]
Whither Area Studies?
Memo #316 Advancing the project of Comparative Area Studies and fruitful Area Studies Comparisons: an Intervention from Europe By Jürgen Rüland – juergen.rueland [at] politik.uni-freiburg.de & Mikko Huotari – mikko.huotari [at] merics.de There is no universal ultimate golden mean between disciplinary research and area studies. Viable intermediate positions are eventually dependent on an individual researcher’s […]