Partnership or Rivalry between the EU, China and India in Central Asia: The Normative Power of Regional Actors with Global Aspirations

Abstract:  This analysis undertakes a preliminary conceptual assessment of the international agency of the EU, India and China in Central Asia. The contention is that the strategies advanced by Brussels, New Delhi and Beijing in the region reflect not only their desire to introduce a framework of predictability allowing them to make feasible calculations about future intentions, but also the increasing complexity of international life. The claim is that the external agency of the EU, India and China attests to the normative power of their foreign policies. However, the values and norms of the international agency of Brussels, New Delhi and Beijing reflect their distinct experiences and suggest their clashing interests. The article concludes with a brief appraisal of the prospective trends in the interactions between the EU, India and China in Central Asia and contends that it is the patterns of rivalry rather than cooperation that are likely to structure their global agency.     

The Complexity of Global Security Governance: An Analytical Overview

By suggesting predictable and controllable patterns of development, the literature on global governance seems to simplify the world for decision-making tractability. In this respect, security narratives often remain analytically frozen, while the dynamics of global life are not. Relying on complexity thinking, this article both comments on the construction and potential reconstruction of the concept of security as it relates to the question of global governance and engages with the cognitive multiplicity of the notion of global security governance. Such an exploration suggests the need for the complexification of the discourses and practices of security governance through the adaptive contingency of “security as resilience”, which rejects the detachment between human and natural systems and the ability of the former to control the latter. The argument is that the logic of “security as resilience” is more appropriate than the conventional logic of “security as control”. In policy terms, therefore, the complexity of global security governance intimates an ability to cope with vulnerabilities, defy adversity and construct a new proficiency in response to the uncertainty, cognitive challenges, complex unbounded risks and the need for continuing adaptation prompted by the alterations in global life.     

China in Central and Eastern Europe: the unintended effects of identity narratives

Asia Europe Journal - The Central and East European (CEE) part of the Eurasian landmass is often overlooked in the conversations on contemporary geopolitics. Yet, owing to China’s relations...     

Inside/Outside and Around: Complexity and the Relational Ethics of Global Life

ABSTRACT

It has become expected of policymakers, pundits, and scholars to refer to a whole raft of dilemmas – from the economic downturn to climate change – as complex. The complexity of these challenges intimates a pattern of interactions marked by sharp discontinuities and exponential transformations triggered by incremental changes. How can one act ethically and politically in such a turbulent environment? Drawing on Complexity Thinking (CT), this article emphasizes the radical relationality of global life, which contests the Eurocentrism and anthropocentrism of International Relations (IR). The proposition is that the fundamental rift in IR’s inquiry is not merely about the divide between the domestic (inside) and the international (outside) as mainstream orthodoxies aver, but about the very context (around) in which such schisms are located and performed. The relational ethics of such a “complexified” outlook critique the atomistic individualism dominating IR and reimagine the international as a dynamic space for dialogical learning, which promises a world that is less hegemonic, more democratic, and equitable.     

The Puzzle of India’s Relations with “Central Eurasia”

ABSTRACT

India’s relations with Afghanistan and the post-Soviet countries of Central Asia have contributed to the growing interest in the country’s rise. By treating them together as “Central Eurasia,” the discourses of Indian foreign policy invoke a contiguous geopolitical locale bound to India by a shared past. Yet, despite the strategic articulation of a manifest Central Eurasian region, the article uncovers a puzzle of bifurcation in India’s foreign policy reflecting distinct operationalizations of India’s cultural capital in its relations with Afghanistan and the Central Asia republics. The comparative analysis indicates that prior historical experience becomes a compelling strategic context for the continuous framing and reframing of the country’s foreign policy space, which reveals India’s shifting perceptions of international order, self-identity, and global roles. India’s interactions in Central Eurasia offer a good illustration of the crossroads that New Delhi’s foreign policy is facing – either keep on proliferating discourses that spin yarns of the international influence of its historical capital or develop proactive diplomatic strategies that deliver the international status that India desires.     

The fifth debate and the emergence of complex international relations theory: notes on the application of complexity theory to the study of international life

The climate of post-Cold-War interactions remains uncertain. Rather than a transitory stage, the resilience of the pervasive randomness of international life has challenged the dominant frameworks for the study of world politics. Some commentators have therefore advocated the infusion of international relations theory with the conjectures of complexity theory. This article brings together the claims of the different proponents of such intersection and suggests the emergence of complex international relations theory. Although it requires further critical elaboration, the claim here is that this theory outlines the fifth debate in the study of international life and proffers intriguing heuristic devices that both challenge conventional wisdom and provoke analytical imaginations.

It is also possible that hard imaginative thinking has not increased so as to keep pace with the expansion and complication of human societies and organisations. That is the darkest shadow upon the hopes of mankind.