Emotions, Politics, and Sino-Japanese Relations

July 27, 2017 6:30 PM (finished)


Todd H. Hall

(University of Oxford)

Date/Time July 27, 2017 6:30 PM
Location Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo　 [map]
Abstract How do we explain the seeming instability of contemporary relations between Japan and the People’s Republic of China? As both the world’s second and third largest economies and neighboring naval powers with expanding capabilities, the relationship between Japan and China arguably now ranks as one of the most internationally significant. In the realms of security, economics, environmental protection and more there exist strong reasons for mutual cooperation. And yet the relationship has been subject to repeated episodes of mistrust, tension, and mutual recrimination despite periodic elite attempts to foster better relations. In explaining this pattern, existing analyses have tended to invoke a mix of three factors: security issues, economic ties, and emotions. But while analysts have availed themselves of the ample theoretical tools the field of international relations supplies for addressing security and economic relations, emotion has often played the role of a dark matter whose influence is ubiquitous but whose exact properties and variant forms remain a mystery. In this talk, Prof Hall will examine how we can conceptualize the intersection of politics and emotions within Sino-Japanese relations.
Bio Prof Hall is an Associate Professor at the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations and Tutor in Politics at Oxford’s St Anne’s College. He is currently an Abe Fellow located at the Institute for Social Science at the University of Tokyo. Prof Hall earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 2008 and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Harvard, as well as visiting scholar appointments at the Free University of Berlin and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Prior to joining the University of Oxford, Prof Hall held the position of Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Toronto (2010-2013). Prof Hall has published in multiple journals on topics ranging from East Asian international relations to the emotional politics of 9/11. He has also published a book, titled Emotional Diplomacy: Official Emotion on the International Stage, which was recently named corecipient of the International Studies Association's 2016 Diplomatic Studies Section Book Award.