Reinvigorating IOR-ARC
Contents: Foreword. Introduction. 1. Building Indian Ocean regionalisms: an agenda for IORG research/Timothy Doyle. 2. Regionalism: How successful? inadequacy of theories/Uttara Sahasrabuddhe. 3. Regionalism: the experience of the South West Indian Ocean Islands/Christian Bouchard and William Crumplin. 4. South Africa and the IOR-ARC: shifting priorities/Ruchita Beri. 5. IOR-ARC: failures successes and prospects/Saman Kelegama. 6. Refloating IOR-ARC: Australian perspectives/Dennis Rumley. 7. Malaysia, Indian Ocean and IOR-ARC: balancing security and economic objectives/Ravichandran Moorthy. 8. Rescaling Indian Ocean regionalism in the era of climate change: perspectives on and from the Bay of Bengal/Sanjay Chaturvedi. 9. IOR-ARC successes and failures: Indonesian perspectives/Ferdi Syamsir Ishak. Appendices. Index.
The extended Indian Ocean space from the shores of Africa to Australasia, arguably, holds the potential to define the contours of the emerging global goe-strategic and economic architecture: it is rich in energy and other resources; includes flashpoints involving extra-regional powers; is host to a few of the fastest growing economies and emerging power centers; and some of the crucial sea lanes pass through this space. At the same time, it is increasingly an area of rivalries, trans-national crime, non-traditional threats to security, tensions and disputes, highlighting the need for strategic and economic cooperation, particularly amongst the littoral and hinterland countries. The somewhat slow to take off Indian Ocean Rim Cooperation (IOR-ARC) initiative could become one small effort to initiate such cooperation.
The importance for closer regional co-operation amongst the countries of the Indian Ocean cannot be over-emphasised. There are positive indications that IOR-ARC may take on a renewed salience in the future due to renewed regional interest; it is likely that Indian Ocean linkages will improve, not just in matters of trade but also on a number of issues including non-traditional security threats and challenges such as sea piracy, climate change, food security, human security and environmental issues. (jacket)
