Regional Governance (PADM90012)

How can governments across the Indo-Pacific region cooperate to address mutual challenges? This subject examines how a regional governance framework helps us to formulate and implement responses to regional problems, such as transnational crime, environmental degradation, and response to natural disasters. We explore diverse approaches to public policy and administration from across the region, and the tensions which sometimes arise among them. For example, we consider how to strike a balance between rules-based governance (relying on international law, norms and rules) and relations-based governance (e.g. the ‘ASEAN Way’). We will hear from guest speakers in the public, university and not-for-profit sectors and consider how governments coordinate and implement policy responses to major regional challenges. This subject will be useful to students who work on issues relating to the Indo-Pacific region or those who are generally interested in how to address regional issues which, by their very nature, cannot be confined to a single country.

Topics:

• Key concepts and debates: What is regional governance, and what does it mean to consider a regional governance framework in addressing regional challenges? What are the key regional challenges faced by Australia and its neighbours in the Indo-Pacific region today? What can we learn from exploring diverse approaches to public policy and administration from across the region?
• Key actors and institutions: We will examine the roles of actors including governments at federal, state, and local levels across the region; bilateral and multilateral agreements among countries, including at the sub-state level; regional governmental organisations and forums; transnational corporations, banking and finance groups; and transnational nongovernmental organisations engaged in humanitarian efforts.
• Key issues and case studies: Case studies may include statelessness and movement of people; environmental initiatives; disaster relief; approaches to transnational crime; and regional economic integration and crisis. Students are encouraged to focus in assessment on case studies of interest and relevance to them.