Competition for Resources
Local Contestations over Territories and Resources: The Great Game of the 21st Century?
A new, global competition for resources and markets seems to be unfolding at the start of the 21st century as emerging economic powerhouses (the BRIC countries, South Africa, Southeast Asia) have joined the fray with the established industrial powers in the West and East Asia. In the past, European and American imperial powers carved out resources and spheres of interest through the demarcation and policing of land and sea borders in Asia and elsewhere, as brought out in the (19th Century) Great Game.
Western imperial powers are no longer the only players in the global competition for resources, and perhaps even the rules of the game are changing. While the old-fashioned belligerence of formal territorial disputes remains, the emergence of economic zones and corridors suggest that less clear-cut gradations of sovereignty may be the order of the day.
If there really is a new Great Game in progress, how is it unfolding in terms of territories, what sort of resources are coveted, and what kind of state and non-state actors are involved? For this panel we invite papers that investigate the shifting economic and political power relations between Asia and the West, and zoom in on local consequences and responses in Asia, Europe, and elsewhere, that involve Asian and/or European interests.
4th International Conference
Rising Asia, Anxious Europe
2-3 May 2012
Asian Dynamics Initiative - University of Copenhagen