In-Person Panel PS2.5

Social Forces, State and New Politics of Geoeconomics

The Australian Labor Party, the crisis of Asian engagement and the new cold war  

Kanishka Jayasuriya, Priya Chacko 

How do we explain the Australian Labor Party’s embrace of the AUKUS project despite intra-party divisions, the party’s long-held anti-nuclear stance and a professed commitment to foreign policy independence? Our contribution is to suggest that structural changes in the role of political parties and politicians are pivotal to understanding both the reproduction of the post-Cold War economic and political order and its reconstitution in the new Cold War between the US and its challengers. These political effects are evident in the emergence of various forms of militarised neoliberalism that fuse logics of security and markets in security institutions and processes. For the Labor Party, the support for AUKUS stems from the crisis of post-Cold War strategies of Asian engagement and middle-power diplomatic activism and second, the post-Cold war cartelisation of the party – that is, the hollowing out of the party as a representative institution. In this paper, we focus on the crisis of Asian engagement in the context of an increasing authoritarian state and forms of militarised neoliberalism.

Geoeconomics and the apocalypse 

Mark Beeson

One of the more alarming features of the contemporary international landscape, be it the geopolitical or the geophysical variety, is the possibility that it is about to enter a state of possibly terminal crisis. Multiple old-fashioned and pointless conflicts, and increasingly alarming and frequent environmental catastrophes, provide basis for this otherwise rather hyperbolic claim. Indeed, the former render the latter even harder to resolve, making the collapse of ‘civilisation as we know it’ a real possibility. This paper places the concept of geoeconomics in this increasingly apocalyptic context and suggests that nation-states’ continuing preoccupation with parochial political imperatives and unhelpful competition with their peers makes the chances of an effective global response to the challenge of climate change all but impossible. This gloom-inducing prospect is especially likely if any version of geoeconomics is based on an unsustainable model of growth-oriented capitalist development.

Reconnecting Indo-Pacific transnational capitalist class through regional security architecture  

Trissia Wijaya

The return of US-China rivalry has added impetus to the strengthening of strategic partnerships and minilateralism, including but not limited to AUKUS, Quad, and Trilateral Security Dialogue. While this kind of dynamics has put every nation in the Indo-Pacific on high alert, little has been known that underneath these new deals  lie a new geopolitical economic form, namely the formation of transnational political, military, and capitalist alliances. These alliances reconnected through such minilateral security institutions and bilateral strategic partnerships have managed to reorganise their interests and drag industrial capital closer to security agendas. Focusing on AUKUS and Quad, this paper argues how these like-minded countries partnership platform have rather served as an ideological project. Being associated with “de-risking China” and “stabilizing Indo-Pacific”, they have facilitated and mobilized what this paper coined as “the Indo-Pacific ruling class” who gain benefits from military spending and derivatives of security programs.

Avoiding an Economic “Interdependence Trap” in the Indo-Pacific Geoeconomics 

Yuma Osaki, Takashi Terada

The paper revisits the theory and practice of economic interdependence in the context of the Indo-Pacific Geo-economics. It highlights a concept of “interdependence trap,” providing theoretical explanation and possible ways to manage vulnerability. In analyzing the relationships between power and interdependence, it is widely considered that sensitivity and vulnerability could create weapons that can be used in strategic competition when asymmetry exists. However, the recent cases suggest manipulating interdependence as a strategic weapon does not necessarily turn into long-term gains for a sender. Instead, coercive pressure often spills over to third countries beyond the bilateral channel and the targeted countries can manage to minimize the damage through various measures. A shift and focus on economic relative gains, instead of conventional absolute gains, would be a crucial component concerning contemporary competition among major powers and the rise of Geo-economics in the Indo-Pacific. Comparatively analyzing Australia and Japan’s economic relations with China, the paper examines the ways in which each trade relation changed and their responses to economic weaponization.