We are pleased to announce the full program for the Seventh Global Conference of WISC, which will be held in Warsaw on 24-26 July 2024. For your convenience, a directory of confirmed participants is also available for consultation. You can browse the list here. Additionally, you can download a PDF copy here.
FC08: States, Power Distribution, and the Indo-Pacific
Time:
Friday, 26/July/2024:
3:00pm - 4:30pm
Session Chair: Dr. Barbara Kratiuk, University of Warsaw
Location:Room 0.410
Ul.
Dobra 55
Roundtable
Presentations
States, power distribution and the Indo-Pacific
Chair(s): Dr. Barbara Kratiuk (University of Warsaw)
Presenter(s): Dr. Catherine Jones (University of St Andrews), Prof. Beata Bochorodycz (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan), Prof. Rob Rabel (Victoria University of Wellington)
The increasing rivalry between China and the United States has highlighted the challenge for smaller states in the Indo-Pacific of maintaining their security and agency. The inequality of power between the United States and China and even the next most powerful states, such as Japan or Australia, is vast. This roundtable will explore how this power differential impacts the agency and security of smaller states in the region. The role of middle and small powers has been heightened by the uncertain and shifting distribution of power, which many states are trying to revise and influence in their favour. States like Japan, Vietnam and New Zealand are thus acting in ways that will both stabilise the distribution of power and increase their own standing in the Indo-Pacific.
This roundtable will grapple with the following related questions: how can small and middle powers maintain and increase their security in the face of challenges to the existing power distribution? What kind of strategies can these states employ in the Indo-Pacific to maintain or increase their standing and agency? Is it possible for the region’s small and middle powers to influence the distribution of power sufficiently to secure their own interests in the face of the rivalry between the United States and China?
