Asia
Economic success, social dynamism and politically assertive strategies have positioned Asia firmly in contemporary discourses on global security, multilateralism and conflict prevention. However, the connections between the United Nations and Asian policy research institutions have often been sparse. Consequently, IPI seeks to identify and create new partnerships in Asia to better connect the UN to regional research and policy networks.
With an Asian Secretary-General at the helm of the world body and the projected increase in demand for UN peace operations worldwide, there are opportunities for the UN and Asia to develop stronger ties in the realm of conflict prevention and mediation, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. To that end, IPI has sought to convene member states, practitioners, Asian scholars and research institutions in order to share lessons learned from Asia’s historical experience and develop a strong mutually beneficial relationship between Asia and the UN.
IPI has focused on Asia through a number of past projects that have examined critical multi-dimensional issues affecting the region, including Kashmir, China and India, Asian regional organizations and security and development in the Asia-Pacific. In August 2005, IPI and ISIS, the Institute for Strategic and International Studies in Kuala Lumpur, organized a meeting that convened scholars and think-tanks from around Asia to discuss issues ranging from post-conflict peacebuilding to counter-terrorism from Asian perspectives and connect them to ongoing deliberations at the UN. Following this, IPI held a small senior-level workshop in Singapore in November 2006, co-hosted with the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum, New York, to reflect on the past and future relationship between the UN and Asia.
Through the program “Coping with Crisis, Conflict and Change: The UN and Evolving Capacities for Managing Global Crises,” IPI has also promoted a mapping exercise of contemporary challenges facing individual regions as well as a more vertical approach examining potential crises on a thematic bases. In the Coping with Crisis Working Paper on Asia, Michael Vatikiotis analyzes a range of security challenges confronting Asian powers, large and small alike, today. While acknowledging deep-seated traditional political rivalries, Vatikiotis argues for a more effective multilateral framework to facilitate accommodation of changing regional power balances. Click here to access this paper.
Most recently, IPI hosted a meeting in March 2007 to discuss the nature of evolving security challenges in Asia and opportunities for multilateral engagement. It was held in partnership with the Consortium on Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia (NTS-Asia), a network of research institutes and think tanks in Asia which aims to encourage innovative thinking about transnational security concerns in the region. It brought together representatives of UN member states, senior UN officials, academics and others from the policymaking community in New York. For a report from this meeting please click here.
Among initiatives currently under development is a volume on terrorism in South and Southeast Asia, in partnership with the United Nations University. The volume will explore the long-term historical context of political violence in the region and examine in detail a number of factors which have contributed to the choice by political actors to adopt a strategy of violence. The first authors’ workshop for this project was held in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in association with the International Center for Ethnic Studies (ICES). This will be followed by a second meeting in Kuala Lumpur, held in cooperation with ISIS.
- Asia: Towards Security Cooperation, Coping with Crisis Working Paper Series
- Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches
- China and India: Cooperation or Conflict ?
- The United Nations and Regional Security
- Security and Development in the Pacific Islands: Social Resilience in Emerging States