The conference will focus on security in the Eastern Mediterranean by incorporating elements from three perspectives:
- Global power shifts and geopolitical changes in the region;
- socio-political transformations in the region; and
- opportunities for and obstacles to inter-state cooperation and regionalism.
The aim is twofold: to re-conceptualize the Eastern Mediterranean as a space and collectivity of actors in light of the changing geopolitical environment; and to unpack current security perceptions in the region from the point of view of local and international considerations and motives.
As regards the former, the context includes, in particular, the USA's declining involvement in the region, the regional states' as well as other external actors' simultaneously increasing assertiveness in search for more space to exercise influence, and the region's recently-discovered offshore hydrocarbons potential. The latter will be done by thinking especially around the following three broad questions:
(a) Whose security?
(b) What kind of security?
(c) How can traditional and human security considerations in the region be bridged?
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