PAIS is a member of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) – here is a reminder of events, opportunities and benefits for PAIS researchers, including PhD students.

The ECPR The Joint Sessions of Workshops will be held 25 – 28 April 2023 at Sciences Po Toulouse and Online. This is an excellent intensive series of workshops on specific topics. The call for papers is now open – browse the WorkshopsLink opens in a new window and submit your proposal here by 9 January 2023.

The ECPR General Conference will be held 4 – 8 September 2023 at Charles University, Prague. The deadline for paper proposals will be 28 February 2023 (see Home - ECPR General Conference, Charles University, 4 – 8 September 2023).

There is also – just – time to register for the ECPR Winter School on Social Science Methods, to be held 6 – 11 February 2023 at KU Leuven and Online. To secure your spot: click here to browse the course list, add your chosen course to the basket, and head to checkout. The course confirmation deadline is 19 December.

Because Warwick is a full ECPR member institution, there are funding opportunities especially for research students and early career researchers – see https://ecpr.eu/Funding/Funding. The easiest way to keep up with ECPR events and opportunities is to sign up to MyECPR at https://ecpr.eu/.

Any questions, please contact Warwick and PAIS’ official representative, Michael Saward (m.j.saward@warwick.ac.uk).

Stuart Elden’s book The Archaeology of Foucault has been published by Polity.

On 20 May 1961 Foucault defended his two doctoral theses; on 2 December 1970 he gave his inaugural lecture at the Collège de France. Between these dates, he published four books, travelled widely, and wrote extensively on literature, the visual arts, linguistics, and philosophy. He taught both psychology and philosophy, beginning his explorations of the question of sexuality.

Weaving together analyses of published and unpublished material, this is a comprehensive study of this crucial period. As well as Foucault’s major texts, it discusses his travels to Brazil, Japan, and the USA, his time in Tunisia, and his editorial work for Critique and the complete works of Nietzsche and Bataille.

It was in this period that Foucault developed the historical-philosophical approach he called ‘archaeology’ – the elaboration of the archive – which he understood as the rules that make possible specific claims. In its detailed study of Foucault’s archive the book is itself an archaeology of Foucault in another sense, both excavation and reconstruction.

This book completes a four-volume series of major intellectual histories of Foucault. Foucault’s Last Decade was published by Polity in 2016; Foucault: The Birth of Power followed in 2017; and The Early Foucault in 2021.

Further details on the book including the endorsements from Étienne Balibar, Clare O;Farrell and Camille Robcis can be found here.

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 Business School, having previously taught at Keio University. His research has focused primarily upon Japanese security, having completed a PhD on Japan Self-Defense Forces’ (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’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risks as a Senior Academic Visitor. His recent publications include “UK-Japan military exercises and mutual strategic reassurance”, Defence Studies, Vol. 21 Issue 3 (2021); “Japan’s significance for the United Kingdom’s shaping ambitions in the Indo-Pacific”, East Asian Policy (forthcoming 2022), “Enhancing Europe’s Global Power in Asia 2030”, Global Policy, Vol. 11 Issue 1 (2020); “Shaping the Indo-Pacific? Japan and Europeanisation”, LSE IDEAS Strategic Update (2021); “Military Evolution and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces” 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’s 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’s 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