UNAIR NEWS – Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIP) Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR) held a guest lecture on Tuesday, May 17, 2022. The invited speaker was Associate Professor Dr Jurgen Haacke of the London School of Economics and Political Science. His presentation was on Hedging in International Relations: Examining the Debate.
Moderated by the International Relations lecturer, Agastya Wardhana S Hub Int M Hub Int, Dr Jurgen shared about hedging strategy in international relations. Hedging has become a strategic state behavior between balancing and bandwagoning (a country is allying with the enemy to gain mutual benefits, ed).
“However, hedging is better understood as a risk management strategy. Discussion regarding hedging will be very useful to see differences in practice and behaviour of countries,” he explained.
Dr Jurgen provided an example of this hedging behavior in relation to Southeast Asia and China, especially in bilateral and regional issues between Southeast Asian countries and China in the South China Sea.
Southeast Asia is believed to have a hedging strategy to avoid conflict with big countries or increased conflict tension. Furthermore, Dr Jurgen mentioned that hedging could also be understood as a neutral behavior.
“One main example is Singapore. They declared unwillingness to choose between Washington and Beijing, and keep building intensive diplomacy with The USA and China,” he added.
Dr Jurgen also emphasized that this hedging strategy was practiced by other Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam. From the theoretical side, Dr Jurgen believed that hedging should not be understood merely like any other communion concept.
“Hedging is most better viewed as an important risk management through a certain behavior,” he revealed in conclusion.
The guest lecture was held through Zoom Meeting and attended by 200 participants. Agastya as the moderator also opened an interactive discussion and Q&A session with the participants. The guest lecture was also initiated by FISIP UNAIR and Cakra Studi Global Strategies (CSGS). (*)
Author: Intang Arifia
Editor: Feri Fenoria
