Conveners
- Prof. Dr. Michael North, University of Greifswald, Department of History, Speaker of the International Research Training Programme "Baltic Borderlands", Domstrasse 9a
D-17487 Greifswald, Germany
- Assoc. Prof. Dr. Barnard Turner, The European Union Centre in Singapore, (National University of Singapore),11 Slim Barracks Rise #06-01 Executive Centre, Singapore 138664
Venue
The European Union Centre in Singapore
(National University of Singapore)
11 Slim Barracks Rise
#06-01 Executive Centre
Singapore 138664
Date: February 15, 2010
Workshop topic
The European Union is generally perceived as a model for transnational integration processes by East and South East Asian observers, despite first signs of overstretched institutional structures as well as slow decision-making processes within EU. Whilst Asian attempts at integration in the ASEAN are still at a pre-institutional stage compared to the EU with "pooled sovereignty a long way off and no normative vision of a "borderless" Asia as yet, similar issues of regionalization and regionalism can be observed in both macro-regions. Nonetheless, sceptical critics contend that the European model of integration is unsuitable in an Asian context due to the nature of Asian geography, history, culture and ethnicity, and to the absence of a substantial landmass upon which integration can be lived (see e.g. the recent books by Peter Katzenstein (2000, 2005)). Certainly, ASEAN has developed around a maritime core, the South China Sea, but the suggestion that this a) precludes a high degree of integration, and b) invalidates comparison of Asian and European integration does not hold.
Historically, the region centred on the South China Sea displayed a well-developed maritime infrastructure and traders, administrative officers and the local aristocracies were actively involved in cross-border economic exchange, that must inevitably have been accompanied by an exchange of ideas, norms, intangible and material culture. This tradition - altered and restricted during the colonial period and the calamities of the first half of the 20th century - has seen a renaissance since the end of the 20th century as "national government officials inch their way around prickly barriers to closer operation [and] private citizens from Asia's new middle class are trading, investing, traveling, studying, and talking with each other in record number" (Ellen L. Frost, Asia's New Regionalism, Singapore 2008, p. 63). In this respect the region is not dissimilar to the Baltic Sea Region, which has advanced to a core area of European integration in the period since the demise of the socialist economic order in Central and Eastern Europe. Here also a vibrant network of ties in history were disrupted for a relatively short period during the 20th century, and were reactivated in 1989/91. Specifically, the activities of sub-national, non-state actors have been of enormous importance in transregional integration and the emergence of a common European community across the Baltic. Furthermore, the integration processes of the Baltic Sea Area are determined by the maritime experience of the adjacent nation states and regions.
A comparison of the integration processes in the Baltic Sea and South China Sea regions is merited because both regions faced and face similar challenges including the division due to the Cold War, a collision of economic and political orders and subsequent restructuring, they are crossed by language barriers and religious frontiers, and the presence of a powerful neighbour, Russia and China respectively, that is often perceived as belligerent and has a significant diaspora population in the region concerned. Integration in both the Baltic Sea region and the South China Sea region is marked by a variable geometry and velocity in different issue areas, with differential institutional architectures emerging in response to these patterns.
Scientific objectives
The first major aim of the workshop, "The Baltic Sea and South China Sea Regions: Incomparable Models of Regional Integration?", is to broach new ways of looking at ASEAN integration and generate new insights through a structured, interdisciplinary, comparative discussion of integration in the Baltic Sea region and the South China Sea region in the past and present. On the basis of this dialogue, the participating researchers will elaborate the key points for a common research agenda, thus contributing to the realization of the second objective of the workshop - the formation of a stable network of expert scholars with shared research goals and the necessary critical mass to apply successfully for funding from sources such as the EU 7th Framework Programme.
For this reason, during the first two days of the proposed workshop, the participants will focus especially on the specific conditions of integration in the maritime context, as a opposed to on land, and explore the (dis-)similarities in the patterns and consequences of interactions between different kinds of actors in both regions. On day three, an element of detachment or disruption will be introduced with a selection of papers by "outsiders" that complement the insider perspectives on integration in the Baltic Sea region and the South China Sea region of the previous days - Asian commentators will critique European integration and vice versa. The workshop will close with a roundtable. This will allow the participating researchers to draw together the core insights from the workshop and specify which directions further research should take. In this sense the planned round table will be less a plenary session than a strategic seminar.
"The Baltic Sea and South China Sea Regions: Incomparable Models of Regional Integration?" workshop will be characterized by an active dissemination policy. From the 15th to 17th February, the European Union Centre at the National University of Singapore will be host to invited doctoral students from Political Science, Geography, History and other relevant disciplines, who will have the opportunity to discuss regionalization and regionalism in Europe and Asia with the experts attending the workshop. Following the workshop, the papers of the contributors will be published in "Baltic Borderlands Studies", a new quarterly issued by the International Research Training Programme "Baltic Borderlands".
