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SUMMARY:Romantic Revolutionaries: Populism in East Asia and its consequenc
 es - Professor John Nilsson-Wright
DTSTART:20260204T180000Z
DTEND:20260204T190000Z
UID:TALK230935@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Janet Gibson
DESCRIPTION:Abstract\n\nIn recent years populism has become a critical phe
 nomenon shaping not only domestic politics but also foreign policy in Euro
 pe and North America\, contributing to a new pattern of authoritarian poli
 tics that is threatening the integrity of democratic states.\n\nBrexit and
  Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016 challenged long-held norms
  of rationality\, stability and predictability that underpinned mainstream
  politics and international relations theory. These norms have increasingl
 y been replaced by analytical methods that focus on emotion\, anger and po
 litical marginalisation in shaping political behaviour.\n\nFor many years\
 , and particularly since the 1990s\, South Korea and Japan were often view
 ed as states that were relatively immune to this populist contagion and se
 emingly stable models of political legitimacy. However\, taking a longer h
 istorical perspective reveals that politics in Japan and South Korea has l
 ong been sharply contested and that similar patterns of political alienati
 on\, contested political identity and an unrealised desire for political a
 gency found in Europe and North America also apply in East Asia.\n\nMy tal
 k will examine the roots of this emotionally driven political process in b
 oth countries and considers why political contestation may have significan
 t consequences for the geopolitics of northeast Asia.\n\nBiography\n\nJohn
  Nilsson-Wright is the Fuji Bank University Professor of Modern Japanese P
 olitics and the International Relations of East Asia and a Fellow of Darwi
 n College. He read Politics\, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) as an undergr
 aduate at Christ Church\, Oxford\, from 1984 to 1987 during which time he 
 developed an interest in Japanese politics and foreign policy. From 1988 t
 o 1989 he was a Monbusho visiting researcher at Kyoto University\, where h
 e worked under the guidance of Professor Masataka Kosaka\, focusing on pos
 t-war relations between Japan and Korea.\n\nFrom Japan he moved to the Uni
 ted States\, where he completed an M.A. in International Relations (concen
 trating on East Asian studies) at the Nitze School of Advanced Internation
 al Studies (SAIS)\, Johns Hopkins University\, in Washington\, DC.\n\nIn 1
 991 he returned to Oxford\, to St. Antony's college\, for his D.Phil. in I
 nternational Relations under the guidance of Professors Arthur Stockwin an
 d Rosemary Foot. His research focused on early Cold War US-Japan foreign a
 nd security relations from 1945 to 1960\, and involved extensive archival 
 research both in the United States and in Japan\, where he spent a ten-mon
 th period as a visiting researcher at Tokyo University. His thesis was com
 pleted in 1997 and awarded the British International History Group (BIHG) 
 annual dissertation prize.\n\nAlongside his work at FAMES\, Dr Nilsson-Wri
 ght is head of the Japan and Koreas Programme at the Centre for Geopolitic
 s\, POLIS\, University of Cambridge.\n\nIn addition to his positions at Ca
 mbridge\, Dr Nilsson-Wright has also been Senior Research Fellow for North
 east Asia and Korea Foundation Fellow at the Asia Programme at Chatham Hou
 se which he previously directed as Head of Programme from March 2014 to Oc
 tober 2016.\n\nHe has been a Monbusho research fellow at Kyoto and Tokyo u
 niversities\, and a visiting fellow at Tohoku University\, Yonsei Universi
 ty\, Korea University\, and Seoul National University. He has also been a 
 member of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Agenda Council (GAC) on Ko
 rea\, the UK-Korea Forum for the Future\, and he is a director of the UK-J
 apan 21st Century Group. In 2014 he was a recipient of the Nakasone Yasuhi
 ro Prize.\n\nHe comments regularly for the global media on the internation
 al relations of East Asia\, with particular reference to Japan and the Kor
 ean Peninsula (see here for a representative selection of recent articles)
 \, and has testified to the House of Commons\, Foreign Affairs Committee a
 nd the House of Commons\, Defence Committee.\n\nHe is a member of the edit
 orial board of Global Asia\, and is a founding member of the European Japa
 n Advanced Research Network (EJARN). He is also a non-residential fellow a
 t the Sejong Institute\, Seoul\, South Korea\; a visiting senior fellow at
  the Korea Centre\, East Asia Institute\, National University of Singapore
 \; and a non-resident fellow at the European Centre for North Korean Studi
 es\, University of Vienna.\n\nRegister "here":https://beagle.dar.cam.ac.uk
 /civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=105\n\nPlease note that in the event th
 at numbers are high\, an overflow hall will be used for video coverage onc
 e all seats are taken in the Bradfield Room. We advise arriving early.\n\n
LOCATION:Bradfield Room\, Darwin College
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