Conference Program

This paper examines the contributions of seven Asian Nobel Peace Prize (NPP) awardees to the debates in International Relations and Peace Studies. From local activists to human rights defenders, the NPP paved the way for augmenting the reach of their voices in the Global Public Square. The paper categorizes the ideas and actions of the seven NPP in two areas. The first focuses on how they contributed to creating positive and negative peace. The second is the review of their ideas from the perspectives of the wide array of IR theories. The paper's final section examines how ideas travel worldwide and the potential lessons for the debates in peace studies and IR theory.

Balance-of-power theory has been challenged as insufficient for explaining state behavior. Powerful anomalies for the theory exist, especially among states confronting intense rivalry and war. One such anomaly is under-balancing in the Sino-Indian rivalry by the Indian side up until 2017. This paper argues that India has occasionally engaged in hard balancing, relying on arms buildup and limited alliance formation, but in general, there has been a serious effort not to resort to intense hard balancing by forming military alliances or symmetrical arms buildup. The core argument I make is that the type of balancing is intimately related to the type of rivalry states have. The China-India rivalry has yet to become an intense existential variety compared to the India-Pakistan rivalry where existential security and protection of national identity are of major concerns. The hard balancing has picked up momentum since 2017 in response to a more assertive strategy of the Xi Jinping regime as the Chinese regime has ratcheted up military activity on the India-China border. The general implication is that rivals who do not fear existential threats need not engage in intense hard balancing.

The COVID-19 pandemics, the Russian aggression in the Ukraine or possible conflict over the Taiwan Strait have resulted or may result in a dramatic shift of the international system, challenging U.S. dominant position in the system. Surprisingly, as for now, the U.S. has been a beneficiary of those situations, as despite initial challenges American system, more decentralized one (with higher self-learning potential), seems to be more efficient in the longer run and the U.S. has been maintaining the superior military power, being the only actor in the system able to react swiftly in the face of asymmetric shocks. The paper will analyze U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific in a comparative perspective, looking at Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the context of actual and potential asymmetric shocks in the complex system.

This manuscript delves into the specificity of the Indo-Pacific security landscape, examining the evolving dynamics between bandwagoning and containment strategies employed by regional actors. Against the backdrop of geopolitical shifts and power realignments, the study investigates how nations in the Indo-Pacific region navigate their security policies in response to the rising influence of China and the continued engagement of the US, potentially constituting the Indo-Pacific as a distinct security region. Over the past two decades, the text sheds light on the complex interplay of alliances, partnerships, and strategic maneuvers. By unraveling the nuanced choices made by states in aligning with or containing dominant powers, the research aims to contribute valuable insights into the emerging security architecture of the Indo-Pacific and its implications for global stability.