Energy cooperation and competition
Zoom
The BISA Foreign Policy Working Group (FPWG) is pleased to host an event on ‘Energy cooperation and competition’, bringing together researchers to examine how energy issues shape foreign policy and international relations. As energy transitions gather pace and geopolitical tensions persist, states are increasingly required to manage situations in which cooperation and competition often occur simultaneously.
The panellists will consider how energy resources, infrastructure, and governance arrangements influence diplomatic relations, security concerns, and regional interactions. Particular attention will be given to less frequently discussed geographical areas, including the South Atlantic and the Antarctic, where strategic interests, environmental considerations, and international legal frameworks intersect. Our panel will also address topics such as offshore energy activity, resource management, climate change, and the role of international institutions and regional initiatives in shaping state behaviour.
Taking a comparative and interdisciplinary approach, the event aims to assess how changing energy systems are affecting established patterns of international cooperation and rivalry. It will provide a space for academic discussion of the implications of these developments for foreign policy at both regional and global levels.
Chair
Dr Robert Ralston is a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham. Robert studies international security, grand strategy, and civil-military relations with a focus on the politics of international decline and declinism as well as the politics of military service. He is a member of the West Midlands Military Education Committee and is on the executive committee of the Council of Military Education Committees (COMEC)
Panellists
Dr Maísa Edwards is a Lecturer in Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy Education in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London (KCL). She holds a joint PhD in International Relations from KCL and the University of São Paulo. Her doctoral research focused on Brazil, the Zone of Peace and Cooperation of the South Atlantic (ZOPACAS) and the South Atlantic region. Alongside her lectureship position at KCL, Maísa is Research Fellow at the Department of Military History at Stellenbosch University and was formerly Senior Policy Researcher at ResPublica and the Lifelong Education Institute.
Dr Rodrigo Pedrosa Lyra is an Assistant Professor of International Relations in the Department of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of São Paulo and King’s College London, through a dual degree programme funded by the São Paulo Research Foundation. Rodrigo is also Researcher at the Center for the Study of International Negotiations at the University of São Paulo.
Dr Ignacio Cardone is a researcher at the International Relations Research Centre of the University of São Paulo (NUPRI/USP). He holds a PhD in International Relations from King’s College London and the University of São Paulo, and has held academic positions at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, the University of São Paulo, the National University of Tierra del Fuego, the National University of Patagonia San Juan Bosco, and the University of Buenos Aires. His research focuses on epistemology and methodology in the social sciences, political theory, international security, and Antarctic politics. He has published extensively on Antarctic governance and policy, including The Antarctic Politics of Brazil: Where the Tropic Meets the Pole (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), contributions to the Handbook on the Politics of Antarctica (Edward Elgar, 2017), and Colonialism and Antarctica (Manchester University Press, 2025).
Rory Miller is a Professor of International Politics, Director of the Small States Research Program, and Director of the Energy Studies Program at Georgetown University in Qatar where he teaches and researches on regional security, small states security, maritime and energy security, alliances and external intervention. He also serves as a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. In recent years, he has held a visiting professorship in the War Studies department of King's College London (2014-17), and a Visiting Research Professorship at Trinity College Dublin (2020-21). He is the author or editor of 11 books including Inglorious Disarray: Europe, Israel and the Palestinians (Columbia University Press, 2011), Desert Kingdoms to Global Powers: The Rise of the Arab Gulf (Yale University Press, 2016) and, the forthcoming The Last Temptation: External Intervention and the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Cambridge University Press). He is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press book series on Intelligence and National Security in Africa and the Middle East. His policy-focused work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Economist, Foreign Policy, The New Republic, The National Interest, and The Wall Street Journal.
Registration will close two hours before the event begins