About the Seminar

In an era marked by significant geopolitical shifts, traditional regional organisations such as the EU and ASEAN face new challenges and opportunities. This seminar explores how these entities adapt to evolving partnerships and contribute to maintaining global stability. It delves into the strategic roles that small and middle powers play within these frameworks, highlighting their unique contributions to world order. By examining case studies and current events, we will discuss the effectiveness of existing frameworks and propose approaches to enhancing cooperation and resilience in the face of global uncertainties.

About the Speaker

Alica Kizekova is the Major Lead for International Relations and a researcher and lecturer in Security and Strategic Studies and International Relations at Curtin University in Australia. Her research explores state strategies, soft balancing, democratisation, global governance, great power relations, security, and regionalism across Europe, Eurasia, and the Indo-Pacific.

She currently serves as Deputy Director at the Korea Research and Engagement Centre at Curtin University and collaborates with the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (SFPA). Previously, she was Head of the Asia-Pacific Unit at the Institute of International Relations (IIR) in Prague (2017–2023) and held various academic roles in the Czech Republic and at Bond University in Queensland in Australia from 2004 to 2023.

Dr. Kizekova also brings government experience, having served as an expert adviser to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (2015–2017), and as a ministerial adviser and National Contact Point for the Slovak Republic in the EU’s IDABC programme.

In 2011, she was a MacArthur Visiting Associate Fellow at the Centre for Multilateralism Studies at RSIS, NTU. She earned her PhD from Bond University, focusing on soft balancing strategies through case studies of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and ASEAN in 2013.

About the Discussant

Sarah Teo is an Assistant Professor in the Regional Security Architecture Programme, Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS); Deputy Head, Graduate Studies; and, Coordinator of PhD Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She was formerly Coordinator of Regional Security Architecture Programme (2021-2023) and Deputy Coordinator of MSc (International Relations) Programme (2023-2024) at RSIS. Her research interests include multilateral security cooperation in ASEAN and the Asia Pacific, middle powers in the Asia Pacific, as well as power in international relations. She is the author of Middle Powers in Asia Pacific Multilateralism: A Differential Framework (Bristol University Press, 2023), co-author of Security Strategies of Middle Powers in the Asia Pacific (Melbourne University Publishing, 2018), and co-editor of Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific: The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, and ASEAN (Routledge, 2020). Her work has also been published in peer-reviewed journals, edited volumes, as well as various commentary platforms. She is an editorial board member of the Australian Journal of International Affairs and an international editorial board member of the Yonsei Journal of International Studies. She obtained her PhD from the University of Sydney.