Dear members of the SSJ-forum,

I'm sorry about cross-postings.

I would hereby like to solicit paper proposals for the workshop "The Rise and Demise of Asian World Supremacy:
Power, Effects and Identities", which will take place as part of a conference to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Swedish Institute of International Affairs ("Utrikespolitiska institutet", or UI for short), 28-30 August 2013. The conference will start with a reception on the evening of August 28, continue with parallel research workshops and dinner on the 29th, and end on the 30th with a full day of roundtables, a high level seminar, and a banquet.

The larger conference will address whether, how, why and with what consequences a power shift is taking place. The aim is to dig deeper into the many views and perspectives on this topic, and contribute papers and debates on specific geographical and thematic dimensions related to it, in particular the question how global power shift is experienced, perceived, and dealt with in Africa, Europe, East Asia, North America, and Russia. These themes also largely reflect the research programs at our institute.

This e-mail is a call for papers for the workshop focused on about East Asia. According to conventional wisdom, East Asia is currently experiencing a power shift from Japan and the USA to the "rising China".
Given the actors involved, East Asia is also commonly seen as the epicentre of a global power shift.

This is not the first time East Asia has figured in similar projections. In the mid-1980s, observers similarly predicted the demise of "Pax Americana" and the coming of "Pax Nipponica". They did so in light of the relative economic demise of the USA and the growing economic strength of Japan. Since economic capability was believed to translate unproblematically into political and military power, and since leading international relations theories hypothesise powers to "balance" against each other, some even predicted a "coming war" between the USA and Japan. While predictions of "Pax Nipponica" are long forgotten, astoundingly similar narratives are now weaved around the possible coming of a "Pax Sinica".

But what happened to the idea that Japan would become as the world's greatest power? Were the projections simply wrong? Did Japan ever stand a realistic chance, or even harbour aspirations of replacing the Soviet Union as lead "competitor" or "challenger" in a bipolar world order? Or could "Japan's rise" be more fruitfully interpreted as identity politics, which served one purpose for the Japanese Self and quite another for the Western actors who conjured up Japan as an external threat? And did not Japan actually become dominant with regards to "soft power" rather than "hard power"? In short, what can we learn about the phenomenon of "rise"
and "demise" from the case of Japan?

International relations scholarship tends to gauge the "rise" and "demise" of states based on their possession of capability, and power shifts are analysed accordingly. The aim of this workshop is to move beyond this rather simplistic notion by addressing two other crucial, but strangely neglected, aspects of power:
- Since power is most generally defined as the "capacity to produce effects", it will first ponder what effects on the world Japan had during its alleged "rise", and what effects it has now that it is commonly portrayed as in "decline". One might similarly ask what effects on the world China has today, compared with the effects it had one, two or three decades ago. Moreover, what is the correlation between the possession of capability and the production of effects in the Japanese and Chinese cases?
- A rather different "power question" is what relationship there is between the possession of capability and the production of effects on the one hand, and the construction of "greatpowerness" or "superpowerness" on the other, both within a country and outside of it. Namely, how have Japan, China and other states been appraised in terms of power, and with what implications for the construction of identities?

The answers to these questions will shed light on the "rise" and "demise" of great powers and superpowers as a phenomenon, and thus provide the basis for our assessment of the probability and nature of the coming of "Pax Sinica", as well as on Japan's alleged "decline."

Confirmed workshop participants include Professor Steve Chan (University of Colorado,
http://socsci.colorado.edu/~chans/) and Professor Oguma Eiji (Keio University, http://web.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~oguma/top.html).

Between 5 and 10 more papers will be solicited through this call for papers. Papers should address one or more of the following topics: (1) the larger topic of "power shift" in East Asia; (2) power as effects, e.g. "soft power"; or (3) discursive power and identities, or "superpowerness".

The workshop will result in a proposal for one or two special issues with peer-reviewed journals, or an edited volume with an international publisher.

DEADLINE FOR PAPER PROPOSALS: 14 DECEMBER 2012.
Proposals short be long enough to present research problem, aim and method, but not exceeding 2 pages.

N.B. The organizers will not cover travel and accommodation costs for participants. However, there is no conference fee and all lunches and dinners will be free of charge.

I'm happy to answer questions or offer clarifications.

Best wishes,

Linus Hagstrom
Dr Linus Hagstrom
Senior Research Fellow, Swedish Institute of International Affairs Research Fellow, Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities
Internet: http://www.linushagstrom.org/ and http://www.ui.se/

My contributions to East Asia Forum:
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/author/linushagstrom

New article on the Senkaku/Diaoyu Issue and power shift in East Asia:
http://cjip.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/pos011?ijkey
=eMaaBIBqL28rza2&keytype=ref

New article on Japan's China policy:
http://journals.rienner.com/doi/abs/10.5555/1598-2408-1
2.2.215?journalCode=jeas

New book review on Japan's policy towards South Korea:
http://irap.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/lcs011?ijkey
=rq8ec859BnMzZSn&keytype=ref