Alumni Association
Professor Kristian Skrede Gleditsch (University of Essex)
13 April 2012
Joint Research Project
Project title: Advancing the Scientific Study of Conflict and Cooperation: Alternative Perspectives from the UK and Japan
Japanese Lead Scientist: Professor Atsushi Tago, Department of Government, Kobe University
UK Counterpart: Professor Kristian Skrede Gleditsch,Department of Government, University of Essex
Workshops held September 2011 and March 2012
ESRC/JSPS
funding for collaborative workshop on “Advancing the Scientific Study of
Conflict and Cooperation: Alternative Perspectives from the UK and Japan"
Based on shared research interest on
domestic politics and international military collaboration and commitment,
Gleditsch of the University of Essex and Tago of Kobe University submitted a
bid for the ESRC-JSPS call for collaborative research workshops in September
2010.
Our proposal highlighted the increasing
prominence in the study of conflict and cooperation of scientific approaches,
emphasizing systematic theory and rigorous empirical testing. However, we noted
a series of problems arising from the US dominance in existing research, and
how excessive attention to US institutions and foreign policy undermines our ability
to understand variation in the constraints and incentives for multilateral
cooperation and the implications of differences in domestic institutions for international
behavior. The UK and Japan provide interesting comparison cases, with very
different institutions, capabilities, and constrains for international behavior.
The ESRC-JSPS funding (£14,435 from the
ESRC plus approx. £15,000 from JSPS) has helped bring together UK and Japanese
researchers for two research workshops, 20-23 September 2011 in Kobe, Japan and
20-22 March 2012 in Colchester, UK. The workshops were very helpful for the
participants in developing their research, and have helped foster a number of
collaborative projects between UK and Japanese researchers, including joint
papers presented at scientific conferences, new data on military bases, a
replication of a UK survey experiment on attitudes to intervention in Japan, and
various funding applications in progress.
Weblinks:
Kobe workshop: http://www2.kobe-u.ac.jp/~tago/Kobe_Essex_Collaboration.html
Essex workshop: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~ksg/esrcjsps2012.html
Essex news item on workshop: http://www.essex.ac.uk/government/news_and_seminars/newsEvent.aspx?e_id=4088
