We are delighted to announce that the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick has moved up to joint 2^nd place out of 79 UK Politics Departments in The Times/The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023. This prestigious league table continues to place us 1st in the Russell Group for both ‘teaching quality’ and ‘student experience’.

Professor Matthew Clayton, Head of PAIS, commented: “It is always really pleasing when the collaborative efforts of staff and students to sustain an inclusive and productive learning environment are recognised in national league tables. PAIS is a special department in which every member of the community is supported to find their own voice by engaging with the best scholarship in our discipline. I congratulate colleagues and students alike for their work and look forward to our building on this consistent success in the future.”

Dr Justin Greaves, Director of Student Experience and Progression, commented: “This is brilliant news for the PAIS Department and all our students, alumni, and staff. It follows our great success in the 2022 National Student Survey (NSS) where we were once again 1st out of all Politics departments in the Russell Group in all categories, including 1st for overall student satisfaction. These consistent results are a testament to the hard work and brilliance of everyone who works and studies in PAIS, along with our ethos as viewing students as partners, producers, and collaborators, and valuing and acting on student feedback. We will continue to place a strong emphasis on academic support, including on study choices, and employability and skills. I look forward to working with our incoming and returning students to ensure that the PAIS Department continues to go from strength to strength. Congratulations everyone!”

Thank you to all our students and staff for PAIS' continued success.

Wednesday 15th March 2023, 5.00pm, S0.18.

Professor Conor Gearty (London School of Economics) will be speaking on “Homeland Insecurity: Why anti-terrorism laws are here to stay – and what to do about it”.

Professor Gearty’s seminar will be a joint PAIS/Law event.

EASG Talk with Dr. Gabrielle Cheung on Democracy, Free Trade, and Backlash Mitigation in Japan
Date: Wednesday, 8th March
Time: 16:15-17:30
Venue: FAB3.25, Faculty of Arts Building

This EASG talk is based on her book manuscript, Resilience in Global Economic Governance. The manuscript investigates the emerging approaches through which democratic governments mitigate domestic backlash against international economic regimes. Drawing upon the case of Japan, this talk examines how elected representatives use the legislative branch as an instrument of insulation to minimise the impact of backlash on policy-making processes. Through statistical analysis and case studies that address Japan’s negotiations over, and accession to, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and its subsequent Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement (CPTPP), the talk shows that governing status significantly influences parties’ level of advocacy for protectionist interests in deliberations on the agreements. More broadly, the manuscript and talk aim to specify how domestic conflicts over global rule-making on issue areas of mutual interest to nation-states may be better managed.

Gabrielle Cheung is a Lecturer in Global Challenges at Brunel University London. Her research focuses on international and comparative political economy, with an emphasis on the politics of trade liberalisation, central banking, and inequality. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California in May 2021. During the 2021-2022 academic year, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Politics and Public Administration (2011-2016), and held a visiting position at the United Nations University’s Institute on Computing and Society (2016).

For more information, please see: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/currentstudents/postgraduatephd/academicsupport/eastasiastudygroup/events/dr_gabrielle_cheung/

EASG Talk with Dr. Marco Milani: Soft power or hard threat? The use of culture and cultural products in inter-Korean relations

Date: Monday, 20th February
Time: 16:15 – 17:30
Venue: FAB4.52, Faculty of Arts Building

In recent years, South Korea has developed an effective soft power strategy through the use of culture and cultural products for enhancing the country’s global influence and status. The so-called ‘Korean Wave’ – Hallyu – has significantly contributed to increase soft power and to support an effort of national re-branding, aimed at providing South Korea with a new set of attributes and characteristics on the international stage. The use of cultural instruments for foreign policy purposes also had consequences for what concerns its relations with North Korea. In particular, inter-Korean relations can be negatively affected in two areas by the development and spread of South Korea’s soft power. First, the circulation of South Korean cultural products in North Korea, which has significantly grown in recent years, could be perceived by the North Korean leadership as a sort of ‘cultural attack’, starting a process of ‘securitization’ of cultural products that can result in an antagonizing dynamic between the two Koreas. Second, the emphasis on specific characteristics of a ‘South Korean identity’ can undermine the process of inter-Korean reconciliation.

Marco Milani is Assistant Professor at the Department of Arts, University of Bologna. Previously, he has been Lecturer at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Korean Studies Institute and Lecturer at the School of International Relations, University of Southern California. He also held teaching positions at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies and had been visiting research fellow at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies (South Korea) and at the Leiden Institute for Area Studies (Netherlands). He has published numerous articles and book chapters on North and South Korea’s foreign policy, contemporary Korean history and inter-Korean relations. He is co-editor of the book on South Korea’s foreign policy titled The Korean Paradox: domestic political divide and foreign policy in South Korea (Routledge, 2019). He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his research tentatively titled, ‘The Evolution of Inter-Korean Cooperation: History, Theory and Practice.’ His research interests include: Korean History and Society, History and International Relations of East Asia, North and South Korean foreign and security policy, Inter-Korean relations, Contemporary Korean cultural production, Media and Communication in Korea and East Asia.

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