Newsletter May 2010 Dear friends and colleagues, We are proud to present a new form of the ISDP newsletter that will be issued on a monthly basis. ISDP has entered the new decade with a rede- signed website to provide you with better access to our news and publications. Our forums have been well attended by members of the diplomatic community, decision makers as well as fellow colleagues from academia and other research centers in Stockholm. In May, we will start posting recordings from our forums on the ISDP website so as to make them available to a wider international audience. All of our publications continue to be freely accessible on our website; should you wish to order printed copies, you can do so via Amazon.com. Our project on organized crime and narcotics continues to prosper having recently received new funding from the Swedish International De- velopment Agency (Sida) to embark on a new project in regard to organized crime in the Baltic Sea region. Furthermore, a new lecture series on transnational organized crime, which was launched in January, has quickly gained a wide audience, especially among members of the Stockholm diplomatic community. If you wish to register for our forums, please sign up via the newsletter link on our website. News ISDP VISITED DPRK NEW RESEARCH PROJECT ON ORGANIZED CRIME April 24, 2010 March 10, 2010 A delegation from ISDP led by Director Niklas Swanström visited With funding from the Swedish International Development Coop- the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from April 24 to eration Agency (Sida), ISDP has initiated a new research project on April 30. organized crime in the Baltic Sea region. Please click here to read the full press release (in Swedish). GUEST RESEARCHER FROM THE NATIONAL DEFENCE ACADEMY, JAPAN April 2010 NEW ISSUE OF THE CHINA EURASIA FORUM QUARTERLY Mr. Norihito Kubota started a three-month fellowship at the ISDP February 15, 2010 this April as a guest researcher. He is an assistant professor at the Volume 7, no. 4 of the China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly is now Department of International Relations, National Defense Academy, out. Please visit the CEFQ website to read more. Japan. Apart from conducting interviews on various topics, espe- cially on peacekeeping, Mr. Norihito Kubota is conducting research NEW ISDP WEBSITE on “North Korean issue” in Japanese domestic February 10, 2010 The Institute for Security and Development Policy is proud to pres- GUEST RESEARCHER FROM THE CICIR, CHINA ent our new website. It is our hope that this site will facilitate finding March 2010 information about our research as well as our publications. Mr. Song Qingrun started a three-month fellowship at the ISDP this March as a guest researcher. He is currently an assistant professor SILK ROAD STUDIES WOrksHOP at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations February 10, 2010 (CICIR). Mr. Song is conducting research mainly focusing on Myan- On February 10, the ISDP Silk Road Studies Program organized a mar/Burma, Thailand and Mekong Workshop in Tbilisi on Georgia’s strategy on the occupied territories. Among the participants were the Georgian minister for Reintegra- ISDP INHOUSE SEMINAR WITH THE U.S. AMBASSADOR TO tion, members of the opposition and civil society. STOCKHOLM, MATTHEW BARZUN March 25, 2010 Ambassador Barzun visited the ISDP office in Stockholm for an in- house meeting with our research staff. Institute for Security and Development Policy 1 www.isdp.eu May 2010 Forthcoming Staff Activities Staff Development The ISDP is expanding its fields of research through working JUNE 17, 2010 with distinguished experts as well as providing recent university Xiaolin Guo will address the Expert Meeting “Shifting Grounds in graduates with the opportunity to gain valuable experience in Burma/Myanmar? Dilemmas & Opportunities for the International our internship program. Community” at the Clingendael Institute, The Hague, the Nether- lands. Learn more about the event here. NEW STAFF MEMBERS MAY 21, 2010 Beginning January 1, Roger Svensson joined ISDP as a Staff Mem- Niklas Swanström will participate in a conference on “China and ber. He has previously worked at STINT and is currently also work- Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia’s new «best friend»?” organized by the ing part-time with the German Marshall Fund. Centre for Asia and the Pacific at Sciences Po in Paris. His presen- tation is entitled “China/Myanmar security relations: India and Anna von Wachenfelt joined the Institute as a Project Coordinator. Southeast Asia at risk?” She holds a M.A. degree in International Relations from St Andrews University. Christopher O’ Hara joined the Institute as a Junior Research Fel- Conferences low, and is active in conflict management issues related to Southeast The ISDP organizes occasional conferences and workshops. Asia and Northeast Asia. Before this, he studied at the Department of Government in Uppsala. CONFERENCE ON POLITICAL ROLES OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES IN INTErnsHIPS SOUTH ASIA, ORGANIZED BY ISDP AND S. RAJARATNAM SCHOOL OF Cemal Özkan has been as an intern at ISDP during spring 2010, INTErnATIONAL STUDIES IN SINGAPORE February 25, 2010 drafting papers, compiling applications and assisting Walter Kegö After three seminars in Islamabad, Kolkata and Kabul, the Confer- in research issues pertaining to organized crime in the Baltic Sea ence in Singapore continued the discussions from the local seminars Region. but with a wider regional perspective. The workshop focused on the political roles of religious communities in South Asia in its entirety Jenny Söderström worked as an intern at ISDP between January and and how their roles relate to the region’s strategic picture. Thus March 2010, developing project proposals and writing articles on the following key topics were formulated: Laws, Constitution and Georgia and ethnic minorities, she is currently on maternity leave. Religious Communities and Experiences of emerging conflicts and Söderström holds a Master’s Degree in Peace and Conflict Studies Conflict Prevention in Relations between Religious Communities. from Uppsala University and has recently moved back from Georgia Two to three persons represented each country and they were chosen where she spent two years working for the Danish Refugee Council. with the aim to have the best possible representation of professional expertise from different necessary disciplines. Dan Wu, a student from the Master Program of International and European Relations at Linköping University, started to work as an CONFERENCE ON REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CO-OPERATION IN EU intern at ISDP from February 2010. Wu is currently the editor of AND ASEAN: LESSONS FROM TWO REGIONS, ORGANIZED BY ISDP IN China and PLA newsletter and news digest editor for the China and COOPERATION WITH THE ASEAN STUDIES CENTER IN SINGAPORE Eurasia Forum Quarterly. February 22, 2010 The purpose of this conference Erik Leijonmarck started an internship at ISDP in January 2010. was to bring together scholars He is working on a project which is aiming to increase awareness of and policymakers to discuss harmful effects of drug consumption on societies. Mr. Leijonmarck the topic of regional coopera- is a student at Uppsala University and his interests are foreign policy tion in environmental protec- analysis and development policy in Greater Central Asia and the tion in Europe and Southeast Caucasus. Asia, and what lessons both regions can learn from each Edward Gillmore is working as an intern at ISDP, editing publica- other in this regard. While tions and contributing to publication content. He now provides participants were selected on scholarly merit, the diverse list of par- research assistance to Walter Kegö, Karl Harbo and Christopher O´ ticipants reflected also a broader desire to include policymakers and Hara on transnational organized crime, Afghanistan and Chinese other high-level representatives, thus recognizing that information foreign policy respectively. His research interests are energy security and research on regional environmental protection as a non-tradi- and environmental stakeholder facilitation. tional security issue needs to be shared across a spectrum of actors. SILK ROAD PROGRAM WORKSHOP February 10, 2010 WORKSHOP on the Action Plan of the Government of Georgia: State Strategy on Occupied Territories organized by ISDP and the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies in Tbilisi. Institute for Security and Development Policy 2 www.isdp.eu May 2010 PUBLICATIONS Books, Silk Road, Asia, Stockholm, and Policy Papers are together with ISDP Policy Briefs the main written output of ISDP research. The Institute’s researchers also contribute to the public debate through articles in journals and newspapers. Books INTROEURAsiA: MOniTOring THE EU’S CENTRAL AsiA STRATEGY CONFLICT PREVENTION And Michael Emerson Jos Boonstra MANAGEMENT in NORTHEAST AsiA: Nafisa Hasanova THE KOREAN PEninsULA And TAIWAN Marlène Laruelle STRAIT in COMPArisON Sebastien Peyrouse Niklas Swanström FRIDE, 2010 Sofia Ledberg Alec Forss (eds.) Into EurAsia – Monitoring the EU’s Cen- May 2010 tral Asia Strategy offers the first assessment of this ambitious plan, undertaken by independent analysts from Two of the world’s most dangerous flash- the EU and Central Asia within the context of the EUCAM project. points, this edited volume with contribu- The role of Russia, China, the US, Turkey, Iran and the other major tions by leading scholars offers a comprehensive evaluation and com- players, as well as the current