Dr Jurgen Haacke CBG.9.01

This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available to General Course students.

This course has a limited number of places (it is capped).

This class-only half unit course examines key aspects of the contemporary international relations of Southeast Asia, with the primary focus being on the intramural relations of the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). In order to contextualise these intramural relations, the course first explores the different domestic political settings in which Southeast Asian decision-makers have operated, including ethnic politics and insurgencies. It also examines some of the past interstate tensions and disputes in Southeast Asia and more recent transnational security challenges. The course then, secondly, engages in a comparative analysis of the foreign and security policies of select ASEAN states. This will involve taking account of a range of additional factors, such as geography, leadership, state-society relations, and economic interests. Thirdly, the course explores how the domestic backdrops and foreign policy outlooks of Southeast Asian states have shaped the nature, effectiveness and limits of ASEAN as a vehicle for intramural political-security cooperation. Specifically, the course assesses the grouping's efforts to establish an ASEAN political-security community. Fourthly, the course focuses on defence modernisation amid wider regional security challenges that maritime Southeast Asian states in particular are facing in the contemporary period, with a view to assessing how ASEAN states have fared in managing regional security and order. Concepts and theories drawn from International Relations, and especially Foreign Policy Analysis and Security Studies, will be applied as appropriate.

This course is delivered through classes totaling a minimum of 20 hours across Michaelmas Term. This year, some or all of this teaching will be delivered through a combination of in-person classes/classes delivered online.

Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Students will write one essay with a maximum length of 2,000 words and present on class topics.

Ba, Alice D. and Beeson, Mark (2018). Contemporary Southeast Asia, 3rd ed. (Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

Acharya, Amitav (2014). Constructing a security community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the problem of regional order, 3rd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge).

Croissant, Aurel and Philip Lorenz (2018). Comparative Politics of Southeast Asia: An introduction to Governments and Political Regimes (Springer).

Ganesan, N. and Ramses Amer, eds (2010). International Relations in Southeast Asia: Between Bilateralism and Multilateralism (ISEAS).

Leifer, Michael (2000). Singapore's Foreign Policy: Coping with Vulnerability (Routledge).

Saravanamuttu, Johan (2010).  Malaysia's Foreign Policy: The First Fifty Years-Alignment, Neutralism, Islamism (ISEAS).

Severino, Rudolfo (2006). Southeast Asia in Search of an ASEAN Community (ISEAS).

Slater, Dan (2010). Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press).

Tan, Andrew T.H., ed. (2007). A Handbook of Terrorism and Insurgency in Southeast Asia (Edward Elgar).

Till, Geoffrey and Jane Chan, eds (2014). Naval Modernisation in South-East Asia: Nature, causes and consequences (Routledge).

Weatherbee, Donald E. (2015). International Relations in Southeast Asia: The Struggle for Autonomy. 3rd ed. (Rowman & Littlefield).

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours) in the summer exam period.

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