International Politics and Construction of Climate Security by Small Island Developing States: Maldives and Samoa

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This research investigates Small Island Developing States’ (SIDS) discursive formation of national and foreign policy on climate change as a security concern. It recognises SIDS have played an important role in promoting comprehensive approaches to climate security at the UN Security Council debates. While the Security Council has stayed away from fully securitising climate change, this thesis presents a conceptual/methodological framework to explain the domestic construction of climate security by SIDS, based on the experiences of Maldives and Samoa.

In this final seminar, Athaulla Rasheed will argue that SIDS’ advocacy for broader meanings of security is important for the Security Council’s climate debates or securitising climate at the international level. In adopting a constructivist approach to international relations and security studies, this research identifies, analyses, and explains the discourses and identities constitutive of policy narratives that have shaped the climate threat identification and problem-solving approaches adopted in Maldives and Samoa. The Maldives and Samoa’s cases asserted that SIDS become important stakeholders in developing intersubjective narratives to incorporate more holistic and comprehensive aspects of problem-solving into the international peace and security discourse concerning climate change.

Speaker

I am Athaulla Rasheed, and I am originally from Maldives. Currently, I am completing a PhD at the Department of Pacific Affairs, ANU, on understanding the broader meanings of security via the lens of climate security in small island developing states and their engagement in the UN Security Council debates. I was a former foreign service officer and diplomat at the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Maldives and have convened and taught in the political science and international relations programme at the Maldives National University. I have authored in peer-reviewed international journals and policy publications on small states’ impact on international policy and regional security agenda in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific, and the Indo-Pacific security communities, and applied the small states’ security frame to study the Indian Ocean maritime security governance as part of international research projects.