Christian Bueger

Category Archives: Events and Presentations


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Workshop on international objects

The idea that international relations research is more productive if it starts out from objects, rather than subjects and their intentions, is increasingly gaining a foothold in the discipline. On June 16th and 17th the Global Governance Centre of the Graduate Institute hosted a workshop in Geneva that assembled some of the key advocates of the turn to objectual international relations. The discussion concerned in particular the relationship between expertise and object and for instance the question in what way epistemic practices are required for objects of global governance to emerge.

At the workshop I presented some ideas on the relationship between epistemic infrastructures and global governance objects. I argued that such infrastructures are vital in the production and maintenance of objects. I drew on empirical examples from the evolution of ‘piracy’ as an object of international governance and how contemporary maritime domain awareness approaches are increasingly rendering the object as multiple.


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Workshop on Japan-EU relations

On the 15th of June, I had the pleasure to attend the workshop “Japan and Europe in a contested world”, held at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. At the workshop I was introducing our research on the consequences of the Indo-Pacific narrative for the EU and Japan and the dangers of maritime militarization dynamics.


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SafeSeas Workshop on maritime security in the United Kingdom

Following up on our work with the UK government on refreshing the maritime security strategy, SafeSeas is organizing a one day workshop discussing the challenges linked to implementing the strategy. The workshop is organized by Tim Edmunds and in collaboration with the Department of Transport. The event will bring together key representatives of the UK maritime security community.


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Cyber Diplomacy Workshop in Bologna

On June 6th, I am attending the CyDiplo Workshop “Diversifying Cyber Diplomacy”, organized by the University of Bologna. At the workshop I will be giving a talk on the importance of including the material dimension in the agenda, and will investigate how subsea data cables matter for cyber diplomacy and cyber security. I draw on research conducted jointly with Tobias Liebetrau as part of our project on ocean infrastructures.


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Talk at TU Darmstadt

On the 16.5. I had the pleasure to give a talk at the Institute for Political Science, Technical University Darmstadt, Germany. In my talking I was introducing the key arguments of a work in progress article written with Scott Edwards (Bristol) and Maren Hofius (Hamburg). The article revisits the community of practice framework as an approach to global ordering. We argue that the interaction between communities of practice in global politics should receive more focus. The discussion revolved around the benefits of the communities of practice approach compared to other frameworks for studying ordering, but also how to actually theorize with and from practices.


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New podcast on maritime security, militarization and the Western Indian Ocean

In a new episode of Sea Control podcast, Alexia Bouallagui, Jan Stockbruegger and I discuss the current situation in the Western Indian Ocean. Drawing on our recent article published in African Security Review, we discuss what other threats than piracy now prevail in the region. We also investigate why the surge of naval activity and strategic competition in the region is a worrying yet underappreciated trend and confronts the Western Indian Ocean with a dilemma. The region relies on external military actors to protect vital shipping lanes, but the presence of these actors also risks importing geopolitical tensions that could undermine regional maritime stability.


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Keynote address at Seapower Conference in Australia

The Australian navy is hosting the Indo Pacific Seapower 2022 conference from the 10th to 14th of May, and I am delighted to attend. I will be giving one of the keynote addresses. In my talk I revisit the evolution of maritime security thinking. I argue that there are different waves of maritime security and speculate about whether there is a new wave on the horizon. The recording of the presentation is available here.


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Talk at University of Bologna

On May 4th I am giving a guest lecture at the Department of Political Science at the University of Bologna. In the lecture I will review the European Union’s approach to maritime security based on a forthcoming paper co-authored with Tim Edmunds. The paper draws on our research on maritime security strategy as well as a talk on the EU’s maritime security strategy I gave last year at the EU Military Committee. Further information and location here.


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How to improve maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea

On April 27 and 28 two key events of our collective research project AMARIS (Analyzing Maritime Security in Ghana) will take place in Accra. On day one we will have an internal meeting and review the set of current drafts for academic articles and how to drive them to publication. Papers, include a discussion of the problem of inter-agency coordination, the effect of maritime security strategies and on the impact that the concept of maritime security had for governance and organization of the maritime sector in Ghana.

On day two, the AMARIS team will present our key policy insights to the major stakeholders and agencies in Ghana. We will investigate how the maritime threat landscape has been evolving, what the key hurdles are in creating effective maritime security governance, and what best practices can ensure the effective delivery of capacity building. The event is hosted by the Center for Maritime Law and Security Africa one of the member institutions of AMARIS.