Writing las dissertations,part one: the rationale for an experimential research project

This article describes the impetus for a research project conducted during 2002–2003 into our law students' experiences of undertaking a dissertation module. It also discusses the rationale for the particular methodology and approach we have used to conduct this research, and presents the results. A driving force behind this research project was not only the desire to obtain knowledge for its own sake but also the need to identify and enhance positive aspects of students' experience of this module. We decided to adopt a student led and experiential method of carrying out our research that focuses directly upon the students' lived-experience of engaging in dissertation writing. The rationale for this decision was our acknowledgement that, within the last decade, students are increasingly defining themselves as consumers of educational services and have a legitimate and indeed pivotal role in quality assurance strategies. We also recognised that adopting an experiential method of inquiry, informed by a phenomenological approach, should, in principle, help to empower students by acknowledging their autonomy and encouraging them to engage in critical reflection. Finally, applying this methodology would provide us with precisely the subjectively rich type of research data derived from the students' lived-experience that we sought. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Changing security cultures in Europe and Southeast Asia: Implications for inter-regionalism

Recent development in Southeast Asia demonstrates a slowly but steadily changing security culture from, first, an informal, consensus-based and often hidden way of managing security to a more open and explicit discourse and, second, from a statist realist definition of security as hard or military security to a broader, liberal understanding that covers the whole spectrum of human, economic and environmental security. This security culture in the making also touches upon formerly tabooed issues such as sovereignty and humanitarian intervention. The paper argues that the new approach has removed obstacles in relations between Europe and East Asia and contributed to the emergence of security as a cornerstone of the co-operation agenda since 1998. At the same time, however, a rapid translation of the inter-regional discourse on security into a working programme or even specific policies is hindered by the prevalence of diverging views on the nature, scope and degree of institutionalisation in Europe-East Asia relations.