GSIS Frontier 10-10 Project

With the end of the Cold War, international organizations (IOs) were seen as fulfilling their peacebuilding and development promise as never before. However, East Asia seemed to miss out on these aspects of international governance due to ideological divides, historical mistrust, territorial conflicts, and defense of sovereign state prerogatives.

The study of international cooperation has been dominated by liberal perspectives initiated and driven by Western powers. Critics raise three main issues with the liberal universalist approach to peacebuilding and development: 1) the discrepancy between universal principles and selective targeting of states based on Western interests; 2) the hegemonic and hierarchical nature of liberal peacebuilding, prioritizing Western values without considering local circumstances; 3) the top-down approach that hinders transformative conflict resolution and post-crisis resilience. 

In response to non-traditional security challenges, new IOs have emerged at both global and regional levels. Evolving research paradigms (some spearheaded by the scholars involved in this project), and policy prescriptions have emerged to explain, predict, and encouraged alternative engagement with these phenomena. 

GSIS Frontier 10-10 project group gathers four world-renown global scholars with complementary areas of expertise to consider the best way forward. Their skill-sets include, Asian transnational challenges and international governance (Amitav Acharya), critical and socially constructed peacebuilding (Oliver Richmond), development cooperation and South-South cooperation (Stephan Klingebiel), and Asian societies and democratic governance (Aurel Croissant). These extraordinary academic leaders will work individually and collectively to establish Ewha GSIS as an international center of excellence addressing East Asian regional cooperation and governance initiatives, challenges, and comparative advantages in terms of description, prediction, and policy prescription. In essence they will be key to establishing an East Asian “school” of thought on the topics.

The global scholars will also be instrumental in building capacity among the faculty and students of Ewha GSIS. Not only will they work closely and publish with the existing faculty members, but they will also inspire and give guidance to the work of the next generation of scholars represented by the post-docs and graduate students supported by the grant. The global scholars have committed to mentoring and training roles with Ewha GSIS students and will help set up and run capacity building workshops and conferences. Finally, the extended networks of all five scholars will be put at the disposal of Ewha GSIS faculty and students to further their own studies, and career opportunities.