Affiche web-Soft Power in the Indo-Pacific_01
Soft Power in the Indo-Pacific
9:15: Welcome
9:30: Opening remarks
9:45: Keynote speaker Pr James Curran (University of Sydney): « Soft power in an age of great power rivalry renewed: an Australian perspective ».
Moderator: Matthew Graves
10:30: Panel 1
Chair: xxx
• Matthew Graves (AMU): “Soft power and ‘the rupture in the world order’: middle power perspectives.”
• Priyam Tripathy (AMU) : « India’s soft power in the Indo-Pacific: environment, diplomacy and challenges ».
Q&A
12:00 : Lunch break
14:00: Keynote Ambassador Christophe Penot: « Two examples of a successful strategy, ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific and Japan’s soft power influence and an assessment of the soft power dimension in France’s Indo-Pacific strategy ».
Moderator: Valérie André
14:45: Panel 2
Chair: Valérie André
• Jiyu Choi (AMU): « Reconfiguring EU Soft Power in the Indo-Pacific: Strategic Partnerships with South Korea and Japan »
• Jessica Gosling (University College London): « Declaring and Doing: The Gap Between Institutional Intent and Practitioner Enactment in UK–South Korea Soft Power »
15:25-16:00: Q&A
Coffee/Tea break: 16:00-16:15
16:15: Panel 3
Chair: Michael Stricof
Oliver Turner (University of Edinburgh): « Narrating US soft power in the Asia Pacific” ».
Isabelle Vagnoux (AMU) : « US public diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific »
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Biographical notes
• James Curran is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney specialising in political and foreign relations history and also a foreign affairs columnist at The Australian Financial Review . In 2025, he concluded the ABC Boyer Lectures on Australia as a Radical Experiment in Democracy by outlining Australia’s current strategic dilemma (“Trump’s gift”). His last book was Australia’s China Odyssey: From Euphoria to Fear (New South Press, 2022) and he will shortly publish Grand Ambition: Paul Keating’s Global Vision for Australia (Simon & Schuster, 2026) which examines Australia’s foreign policy under the Keating premiership. Prior to joining Sydney University, James served in the Department of The Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Department of Defence and at the Office of National Assessments.
• Matthew Graves is professor of Contemporary British and Commonwealth History, Culture and Society at Aix-Marseille University. He leads the research group on Otherness, Memory and Identity at the Laboratory for the Study of the English-Speaking World and co-edits the Contemporary Societies series at the Provence University Press in association with Liverpool University Press.
• Priyam Tripathy‘s research focuses on the links between environment, power and territory, based on cities and regions of the Global South, particularly in South and Southeast Asia. She examines issues of air pollution, urban infrastructure, and political discourses on climate and urbanisation, combining urban geography with geopolitics.
• Christophe Penot is the former French ambassador for the Indo-Pacific (2020-2022). After joining the French MFA in 1983 and after postings in Hanoi, Tokyo, London and Ottawa, he became deputy head of mission in Tokyo (2005-2010), ambassador in Malaysia (2014-2017) and in Australia (2017-2020).
• Dr Jiyu Choi is a postdoctoral researcher in the Amidex DAIP (Democratic Alliance in the Indo-Pacific) Project at LERMA (UR853), Aix-Marseille University. Her research focuses on international relations, with an emphasis on EU–Northeast Asia relations and Indo-Pacific geopolitics. She is particularly interested in how international norms such as democracy, human rights, and peace shape regional and global dynamics. She engages in academic and policy discussions on EU–Asia relations through her academic research, scholarly publications, policy analysis, and media contributions.
•Jess Gosling is a PhD candidate at University College London and a Research Associate at the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS University of London. Her research examines how soft power is understood and enacted in practice across the UK’s global diplomatic missions, with case studies from Mexico, South Korea, and Poland. Her work spans international relations, public policy, and the humanities, focusing on the relationship between academic theory and practitioner knowledge in foreign policy, cultural diplomacy, and science diplomacy. She has over a decade of professional experience with the United Nations, government institutions, NGOs, and civil society organisations across multiple regions, and her research engages closely with applied approaches to international policymaking.
• Oliver Turner is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Edinburgh. His main research interests are currently the roles of social forces including discourse/narrative, identity, empire, and emotions in the making of foreign policy. Empirically he focuses on the Asia Pacific and its engagements with the US, UK, and wider West. His work appears across his numerous academic books and peer reviewed journal articles. He is currently working on a new book which explores the history of US political narratives and their role in expanding and legitimising its global imperial projects.
• Isabelle Vagnoux is a professor of US history and politics at Aix-Marseille University/ LERMA. She specializes in U.S. foreign relations and migration issues. Since 2013, she has co-directed the Observatory of External Relations in the English-speaking World (OREMA) in Aix-Marseille and its research blog https://orema.hypotheses.org . Her recent publications include U.S. Leadership in a World of Uncertainties, Palgrave McMillan, 2022, co-edited with Michael Stricof; Les Etats-Unis et l’Amérique latine, de F.D. Roosevelt à Obama, Atlande 2023. She currently heads an Amidex funded research program, Democratic Alliances in the Indo-Pacific (DAIP).