PhD Supervisions

Prof Hughes supervises doctoral researchers working on topics such as Japan’s international relations, Japanese security and military policy, US-Japan relations, Japan-China relations, Japan-Korea relations, Japan-ASEAN relations, US security strategy in East Asia, new military technology, the political economy of defence, and East Asian security in general. Chris welcomes approaches from well-qualified and motivated students looking for a potential supervisor in these areas.

A list of current and past students is listed here.

Supervisions in progress Completed students

Supervisions in progress

Traumatizing Japan: Securitization and Ontological Security in Foreign Policy Making.

Veronica Barfucci

Japan's grand strategy shift and the 'Abe Doctrine'

June McCabe

The 'Normalisation' of the Culture and Identity of the Japan Self-Defences and Effect on the Politics of Antimilitarism

Xinyuan Ren

Chinese Nationalism and Foreign Policy

Natsumi Shiino (starting September 2024)

Completed students

The Dynamics of Triangular Intra-Alliance Politics: Political Interventions of the United States.

South Korea’s Sunshine Policy Towards North Korea, 1998-2002: Domestic Imperatives and Private Interests.

Japan and East Asian Monetary Regionalism: Towards a Proactive Leadership Role?

Globalisation, Labour Migration and State Transformation in Japan: The Language Barrier and Resilience of the Japanese State in the 1990s.

Identity Transformation and Japan’s UN Security Policy: From the Gulf Crisis to Human Security.

Policy and Ideas in the People’s Republic of China: The Evolution of the Discourse on Economic Security, 1997-2006.

Japan’s Diplomacy Towards ASEAN: A Study of the Determinants of the Japanese Foreign Policy-Making System.

Nationalism and Power Politics in Japan’s Relations with China: A Neoclassical Realist Interpretation.

The Role of Identity in Northeast Asian Security Culture: South Korea’s Middle Power Diplomacy and the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.

Sino-Japanese Competitive Leadership and East Asian Regionalism: The Chiang Mai Initiative and East Asian Organisations.

Japan’s Foreign Policy towards India: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis of the Policymaking Process.

Japan’s Persistent Engagement Policy toward Myanmar in the Post-Cold War Era: A Case of Japan’s ‘Problem-Driven Practicalism’.

Race, Biometrics, and Security in Modern Japan: A History of Border Politics in Japan.

Moving Beyond (Traditional) Alliance Theory: The US- Neo-Gramscian Approach to the US-Japan Alliance.

The US-Japan Alliance and the Relocation of Futenma: Sites of Discursive Exchange in the Reproduction of Security.

Geopolitics as a Traveling Theory: The Evolution of Geopolitical Imagination in Japan, 1925-1945.

Japanese Resistance to American Financial Hegemony: Global Versus Domestic Social Norms.

The Politics of Nuclear Disarmament: Obstacles to and Opportunities for Eliminating Nuclear Weapons in and Between Nuclear Weapons States.

US Grand Strategy Towards China, 1991-2015: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis.

A Historical Institutionalist Approach to Asian Financial Regionalism: A Case Study of the Making of Japan’s Regional Financial Cooperation Policies, 1997-2017.

Japan’s Incremental Grand Strategic Shift in the 21st Century: The Cases of Article 9 and Ballistic Missile Defence Through a Neoclassical Realist Approach.

America’s Alliance Management and Military Technology Transfer Policies: The Case of Japan and South Korea in Aerospace Cooperation.

Emotional Attachment: Emotions and Gender in Japanese Conservatives’ Pursuit of Ontological Security.

Seuk Hoon Baik

A Strategic Theory of International Politics: The Origins of War

Max Warrack

Japan's Cultural Remilitarisation: Gendered Representations of the Japan Self Defence Forces in Manga.