Indian Ocean Regionalism – Picking up the Pattern of Connectivity

Photo: Lucentbyte/Wikimedia commons.

This is a cross-post from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute‘s blog The Strategist.

It’s fair to say that, despite the existence of initiatives and organisations such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), Indian Ocean regional architecture is under-developed. This reflects a lack of shared interests relative to some other regions, including limited economic and strategic integration, great socio-economic disparities, and modest people-to-people links. Yet there’s benefit in seeking to address Indian Ocean transnational issues by regional means.

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Mediation Perspectives: The Tunisian National Dialogue

Photo: Magharebia/Wikimedia commons.

The adoption of a new Tunisian constitution at the end of January has been hailed as a major milestone in the country’s democratic transition and a welcome piece of good news amid concerns about the direction of transition processes in other countries in the region.

From a mediation perspective, the national dialogue process that brought Tunisia to this point is noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, the mediators in this case were insiders with a stake in the outcome. Second, changes in context, beyond the control of either party, significantly altered the strategic calculations of the negotiators and opened the window to an agreement.