The grounded study of Asia’s civil-military relations is overdue. In this new edited volume published by Bristol University Press last month, Alan Chong and Nicole Jenne argue that civil-military relations in Asia ought to be analysed under the concept of Asian military evolutions. Civil-military relations, or CMR in short, have conventionally been derived as a subject worthy of political and scholarly attention because it addresses the question of the viability of a democracy while it has to constitutionally control its so-called ‘armed guardian’. The theme of Asian military evolutions addresses both deliberate and accidental political efforts to defuse disputes between civilian politicians and military leaders over the operation of political order, and builds on innovative attempts to treat CMR as a productive field for defence diplomacy and military operations other than war (MOOTW). Of course, the ‘threat to democracy’ problematique CMR has conventionally dealt with has not completely lost relevance as events over the past decade have shown across Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. However, CMR is increasingly becoming recognised as a key component of strategies to deal with Asia’s broadening national and transnational security agendas, including development and what has become popularly known human security. Asian Military Evolutions contains 13 country studies and one issue based chapter on the peacekeeping dimension of CMR in Southeast Asia. Given the coverage of the book, this seminar will feature remarks by a cross-section of five of its authors as well as an incisive discussion by two experts from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.
Chair
Dr Gregory Raymond
Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University
Speakers
Alan Chong
Senior Fellow, Centre for Multilateralism Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Nicole Jenne
Associate Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Institute of Political Science
Rashed Uz Zaman
Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh
Tuneer Mukherjee
Independent Researcher in Asian Security Studies
Gregory Raymond
Lecturer in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University
Yee Kuang Heng
Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, University of Tokyo
Aries Arugay
Professor of Political Science, University of the Philippines at Diliman, Manila
Jun Yan Chang
Research Fellow, Head of Military Studies Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Discussants
Beverley Loke
Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University
Paul Hutchcroft
Professor of Political and Social Change, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, Australian National University