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Begin New Search Political Geography Southeast Asia Publication Year within 25 Years

281. ASEAN Community Building: Towards a Comprehensive Framework for Civilian Protection in Southeast Asia

Author:
Mely Caballero-Anthony and Holly Haywood
Publication Date:
02-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS)
Abstract:
Initiatives introduced under the various pillars of the envisaged ASEAN Community, notably the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC), represent potential entry points for building a more effective framework for civilian protection in Southeast Asia. This policy brief attempts to delineate some ways by which the opportunities presented by the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC) initiatives, as well as the momentum surrounding the development of a regional capacity for ensuring peace and stability, could be advanced.
Topic:
Gender Issues and Human Rights
Political Geography:
Asia and Southeast Asia

282. US-Southeast Asia Relations: Rebalancing

Author:
Sheldon W. Simon
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
With visits to Hawaii, Indonesia, Australia, the Philippines, and Burma, President Obama and Secretaries Clinton and Panetta demonstrated a renewed US commitment to Southeast Asia despite concern over a projected steep decline in the US defense budget. Southeast Asian reactions to the announcement of an increased rotation of US military assets to Australia range from ambivalence in Indonesia to enthusiastic endorsement in the Philippines and Singapore. Generally, the additional US forces are seen as evidence of Washington's decision to remain involved in regional security. At the East Asia Summit (EAS), Obama outlined his hope that it could serve as a high-level security conclave whose agreements would be implemented through other multilateral organizations. In visits to the Philippines and Indonesia, Clinton and Obama promised naval and air force upgrades to each, including two squadrons (24 aircraft) of refurbished F-16C/Ds for Jakarta. Hoping for a breakthrough in US-Burma relations, Obama sent Clinton to see whether the situation warranted the easing of US economic sanctions and if Naypyidaw was moving to meet US conditions for the restoration of full diplomatic relations.
Political Geography:
United States, Washington, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, Singapore, Southeast Asia, and Hawaii

283. China-Southeast Asia Relations: Setback in Bali, Challenges All Around

Author:
Robert Sutter and Chin-Hao Huang
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Comparative Connections
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
China endeavored to win regional influence and goodwill by emphasizing reassurance and mutually beneficial relations with Southeast Asian counterparts. Nevertheless, it failed to keep the issue of the South China Sea off the agenda at the East Asia Summit as Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was placed on the defensive and compelled to defend China's approach to resolving territorial and maritime security issues related to China's broad claims and sometimes assertive actions. Official Chinese commentaries reacted to the setback in Bali with criticism directed at the US, but they tended to avoid hyperbole sometimes seen in unofficial Chinese media. Official commentaries were measured as they depicted various economic, political, and security initiatives during President Obama's trip to the region as challenges to Chinese interests. They also registered opposition to initiatives by Japan and India regarding Southeast Asia and the South China Sea that were seen as at odds with Chinese interests. Myanmar's decision to stop a major hydroelectric dam project being built by Chinese firms added to China's challenges and complications as it raised questions about China's influence in the country while Myanmar's new civilian government tried to improve relations with the US and other powers.
Political Geography:
United States, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, Myanmar, and South China

284. Gordon P. Means, Political Islam in Southeast Asia. Boulder, CO and London, UK: Lynne Rienner, 2009.

Author:
Brian Bertosa
Publication Date:
10-2011
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
Institution:
Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:
I can recall a time, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, when any attention paid to Southeast Asia by most observers in the West (outside of Australia and New Zealand, at least) was conditioned by that region's importance within the context of the Cold War. Books with titles such as Soviet Strategies in Southeast Asia, or the preposterous assertion on the dust jacket of a volume on the Konfrontasi campaign that Britain's victory in Borneo was of "immense" importance in "stemming the spread of Communism," attest to the fact that political and military writers of that era —or at any rate their publishers—were mainly concerned with which Southeast Asian country would be the next "domino" to fall in what appeared to many to be communism's inexorable march through the region. Today, in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, another simplistic, binary opposition between the West and "someone else" has been ushered in, the so-called "War on Terror," and so, like a soldier replacing the red lens of a military-issue angle flashlight with a green one, interest in Southeast Asia is now often structured around its character as an important centre of political Islam.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Britain, Australia, and Southeast Asia

285. Bay of Bengal: ITLOS' first ruling in favour of Bangladesh

Author:
Jalila Abdul Jalil
Publication Date:
05-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Maritime Institute of Malaysia
Abstract:
Wednesday, 14th March 2012, marked an important date when the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) delivered its judgment on a maritime boundary delimitation dispute between Bangladesh and Myanmar in the Bay of Bengal. The ruling, by a vote of 21 to 1, awarded Bangladesh territorial and full 200 nautical miles (nm) economic rights as well as a substantial share of the outer continental shelf beyond 200 nm. The Tribunal also awarded a full 12 nm territorial sea around St. Martin's Island to Bangladesh. The conclusion of the dispute now opens up opportunities for exploration and exploitation of petroleum and natural gas in the bay.
Topic:
Economics, International Law, International Trade and Finance, Maritime Commerce, and Territorial Disputes
Political Geography:
Bangladesh, South Asia, Island, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

286. Civil-Military Relations in Marcos' Philippines

Author:
Richard Lim
Publication Date:
03-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Strategic Research and Analysis (CESRAN)
Abstract:
After gaining its independence in 1946, the Philippines stood as a "showcase of democracy" in Southeast Asia. Both Spanish and American colonization had bequeathed to the islands Western values and institutions. The Americans had provided for the establishment of a democratic constitutional government. The Philippine press was widely considered one of the freest in Asia.[iii] Yet, on September 21, 1972, President Ferdinand E. Marcos issued Executive Order No. 1081, declaring a state of martial law throughout the nation.[iv] In the years following, Marcos' rule would be marked by harsh political repression, human rights violations, and a massive statewide kleptocracy. The Philippines' fall from grace left scholars scrambling to answer just how did a promising young democracy fall so quickly.
Topic:
Politics
Political Geography:
Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia

287. The impact of the global financial crisis on women in Southeast Asia

Author:
Yada Praparpun
Publication Date:
02-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Oxfam Publishing
Abstract:
This report analyses the impact of the current global economic crisis on women in five Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. This research aims to provide up-to-date information and recommendations to policy makers in both the public and private sectors on how the economic crisis is affecting women workers in the aforementioned countries. The results of the research will be shared with civil society organizations, government agencies, regional and global institutions, academic institutions, trade unions, donor agencies, NGOs, and the media.
Topic:
Economics, Gender Issues, and Financial Crisis
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia

288. The Economy of Burma/Myanmar on the Eve of the 2010 Elections

Author:
Lex Rieffel
Publication Date:
07-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United States Institute of Peace
Abstract:
The government of Burma is undergoing a critical transition: Before the end of 2010, the military regime that has ruled the country since a palace coup in 1998 will hold an election based on a constitution drafted in a nondemocratic process and approved by a referendum in 2008. The referendum fell far short of global standards of credibility and the election is likely to yield a government that neither the antimilitary movement nor the international community view as legitimate. However, the constitution and election also may offer opportunities for further international involvement that began in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. Burma's lagging economic performance—socioeconomic indicators placed it among the world's most impoverished in 2000—is due to a simmering internal conflict based on ethnic and religious differences. Successive military regimes after the failure of Burma's parliamentary government in 1962 have managed to further alienate the population and monopolize the benefits of Burma's abundant natural resources. Growth-disabling economic policies and brutal suppression of dissent since 1988 have caused an exodus of political and economic refugees estimated to be in excess of 3 million. However, Burma occupies a strategic space in the Southeast Asian region. It is a major supplier of natural gas to Thailand and could be a major agricultural exporter, as it was before World War II. Also, Burma is arguably the greatest obstacle to the 2015 integration objectives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and its internal conflict contributes to tension between China and India. There is a glimmer of hope that the next government will consider economic policies conducive to sustainable economic growth, thereby improving the environment for political reconciliation. If so, the challenge for the international community will be to find ways to support economic policy changes in this direction that do not trigger a backlash from the country's military rulers. Though difficult, it may be possible to accomplish this through a patient economic strategy that involves more nuanced use of sanctions and effective collaboration with other actors in the region, particularly ASEAN.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Economics, and Human Rights
Political Geography:
China, India, Burma, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar

289. Winds From the East: How the People's Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia

Author:
Andy Mosher and Douglas Farah
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
National Endowment for Democracy
Abstract:
The People's Republic of China (PRC) is using various components of public diplomacy to influence the media in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. China's primary purposes appear to be to present China as a reliable friend and partner, as well as to make sure that China's image in the developing world is positive. As part of its efforts to do this, the Chinese government seeks to fundamentally reshape much of the world's media in its own image, away from a watchdog stance toward the government to one where the government's interests are the paramount concern in deciding what to disseminate. The Chinese efforts often result in helping authoritarian governments expand control of their local media.
Topic:
Mass Media
Political Geography:
Africa, China, Latin America, and Southeast Asia

290. Hydraulic Pressures: Into the Age of Water Security

Author:
James E. Nickum
Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
No abstract is available.
Topic:
Security, Development, and Economics
Political Geography:
United States, Mexico, and Southeast Asia