糖心TV

Garren Mulloy is a Professor in the Faculty of International Relations and Graduate School of Asian Area Studies, Daito Bunka University, Saitama, Japan, and also teaches intensive courses on peace operations for the University of Tsukuba 糖心TV School, having previously taught at Keio University. His research has focused primarily upon Japanese security, having completed a PhD on Japan Self-Defense Forces鈥� (JSDF) overseas operations at Newcastle University (2011), and he has written on contemporary defence, security, diplomacy and related issues, as well as historical studies of Japan, the UK, and war memorialisation. He is currently a visiting scholar in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge (April 2022-March 2023), focusing primarily upon how the UK and other states and institutions engage with the Japanese Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Vision, as well as continuing research into Japan's post-war period, memories of war, and development of defence institutions and policies. He is also researching a range of other issues, including a project with Catherine Jones (St. Andrews) and Vanessa Newby (Leiden) on Ocean Governance. 

His EASG research seminar is based on his latest book: Defenders of Japan: The Post-Imperial Armed Forces, 1946-2016-A History (London: Hurst & Co., 2021). In it, he charts the development of Japan's post-imperial forces that preceded the JSDF, and the JSDF themselves as existentially challenged and unorthodox military institutions serving a civil society that decries militarism. The talk investigates how the forces developed during the Cold War, adapted to post-Cold War events, their contributions to Japanese and global security and possible reconfiguration for Japan's future security needs. The book and talk examine the internal structures and cultures of the Forces and deconstructs how the JSDF have adapted and will continue to adapt within domestic norms, caught between unresolved legacies of Japan's imperial past and a dynamically shifting balance of regional and global power.

Moch Faisal Karim is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at BINUS University, Indonesia. His primary research interest lies in the intersection of political economy and International Relations (IR) with an emphasis on the role of state institutions and state-society relations in explaining transnational issues faced by Southeast Asian countries. His research has been published, among others, in Territory, Politics, and Governance, International Relations, Foreign Policy Analysis, Asian Studies Review, Pacific Review, and Contemporary Politics.

The transformation of forest governance in low- and middle-income countries has been accelerated due to increased international pressure for climate change adaptation. These endeavours, however, have been severely limited by inefficiencies within the forest-related state institutions tasked with addressing governance challenges, such as coordination, mediating political interests, and strategy-setting. His paper aims to contribute to the discussion of forest governance by providing an alternative view of such limitations. Using the case of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) program in Indonesia, his paper examines the institutionalization process of the climate agenda in the forestry sector and how it influences forest governance transformation.

Date: 17/11/2022
Time: 16:15-17:30
Venue: FAB4.73, Faculty of Arts Building

Yee Kuang HENG is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, The University of Tokyo. Yee Kuang is on sabbatical at Cambridge University鈥檚 Centre for the Study of Existential Risks as a Senior Academic Visitor. His recent publications include 鈥淯K-Japan military exercises and mutual strategic reassurance鈥�, Defence Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 3 (2021); 鈥淛apan鈥檚 significance for the United Kingdom鈥檚 shaping ambitions in the Indo-Pacific鈥�, East Asian Policy (forthcoming 2022), 鈥淓nhancing Europe鈥檚 Global Power in Asia 2030鈥�, Global Policy, Vol. 11 Issue 1 (2020); 鈥淪haping the Indo-Pacific? Japan and Europeanisation鈥�, LSE IDEAS Strategic Update (2021); 鈥淢ilitary Evolution and Japan鈥檚 Self-Defense Forces鈥� in Nicole Jenne and Alan Chong (eds) Asian Military Evolutions (Bristol University Press, forthcoming 2023).

Although the constitutional status of its Self-Defence Forces (SDF) remains a subject of intense political debate, Japan鈥檚 participation in military exercises has in fact grown quite rapidly over the years. Drawing from interviews with SDF officers and civilian policymakers, his paper explores what strategic cost-benefit calculations help explain Japan鈥檚 choice of specific partners or exercise formats (bilateral/multilateral) in the region. Were exercises valued or developed according to some political, strategic, capacity-building, military/operational, or other benchmark? To what extent do those exercises help Japan maintain or achieve its desired vision of regional order?

Time: 16:15-17:30
Date: 11/11/2022
Venue: S0.13, Social Sciences Building

Saori N. Katada is Professor of International Relations at University of Southern California, and she is currently a Banque de France/Fondation France-Japon Fellow at L鈥櫭塩ole de Haute Etudes en Sciences Sociales (FFJ/EHESS) in Paris France. Her book Japan鈥檚 New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific was published from Columbia University Press in 2020, and its Japanese version in 2022. She has co-authored two recent books: The BRICS and Collective Financial Statecraft (Oxford University Press, 2017), and Taming Japan鈥檚 Deflation: The Debate over Unconventional Monetary Policy (Cornell University Press, 2018). She was the vice president of International Studies Association (ISA) from 2021 to 2022. She has her Ph.D. is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Political Science), and her B.A. from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo). Before joining USC, she served as a researcher at the World Bank in Washington D.C., and as International Program officer at the UNDP in Mexico City.

This project examines the infrastructure investment 鈥榗ompetition鈥� between Japan and China in the context of privatization of development finance in the post-global financial crisis world. As geoeconomic challenge to China鈥檚 infrastructure 鈥榖ig push鈥� through its Belt-and-Road Imitative, Japan and the Quad powers responded by establishing Blue Dot Network to certify bankable infrastructure projects with the hope that such certification will invite institutional investors to infrastructure financing in the Indo-Pacific region. By examining contrasting financing features and risk consideration of infrastructure financing between China and Japan, the project illustrates the foundation of quantity versus quality competition among the financial suppliers of infrastructure investment.

Date: Friday, 4th November

Time: 17:15-18:30

Venue: S0.13, Social Sciences

For additional information, please contact the EASG at easg@warwick.ac.uk

Dr Patrick Meehan works in Global Sustainable Development in the School of Cross-Faculty Studies at the University of 糖心TV, and he is also a post-doctorate research fellow in the Department of Development Studies at SOAS. In this seminar, Dr Meehan provides insights into the political economy of the illegal drug trade in Myanmar based on extensive fieldwork conducted as Co-Investigator of a five-year research programme (2017-2022) led by SOAS University of London entitled 'Drugs and (dis)order: Building sustainable peacetime economies in the aftermath of war鈥�. This seminar explores how Myanmar鈥檚 flourishing drug economy is not only rooted in the country鈥檚 longstanding armed conflict, but is also central to processes of rapid political, economic, and social change that have re-shaped Myanmar鈥檚 borderlands since the 1990s. Through exploring issues of cultivation, trafficking, and rising local drug use, Dr Meehan reveals how drugs have become embedded in the DNA of the Myanmar state and the development processes through which Myanmar鈥檚 resource-rich borderlands have been integrated into the global economy. 

Date: 27th October 2022 

Time: 16:15-17:30 

Venue: MS.05, Zeeman Building 

This seminar is part of the East Asia Study Group (EASG) Seminar Series. For further information please contact the EASG at easg@warwick.ac.uk.