Workshop themes

In the past twenty-five years, Western states have sought to spread and embed liberal political, economic, environmental, and human rights norms by coercion, persuasion, socialisation and incentivisation. Asia’s states and non-state actors have responded in different ways – by accepting or co-opting particular norms and normative agendas, by rejecting others, by adopting norms in part, or by modifying and adapting certain norms and the policies that go with them. Some states have shown themselves reluctant to accept liberal agendas but also reluctant to advance alternatives. Others have engaged in the mimetic adoption of liberal norms but decoupled their normative commitments from policy and practice. Others still are seen by some to be constructing parallel agendas with a view to replacing Western norms with different ones more suited to their interests, political ideologies, or cultural preferences.This workshop will focus on the challenges to political, economic, human rights norms posed by Asian states or non-state actors in the areas of, for example, arms control, conflict management, climate change, democratisation and political reform, gender, post-conflict justice, Responsibility to Protect, or trade and investment, with a view to building on going research collaborations between the participants.

Research aims

The key aims of the workshop are to map out a possible future research agenda, to explore possibilities for research collaborations and publications, and to discuss joint funding opportunities. To these ends, the workshop is structured around a series of three thematic roundtables addressing both existing research on aspects of Asia’s challenges to liberal norms, and avenues for future research. Participants will not present formal papers, but rather brief papers in a roundtable style.

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