The conventional wisdom in the study of international statebuilding holds that such interventions trigger a backlash among the population in the host state that causes statebuilding efforts to fail. But this need not be the case. When the political preferences of the statebuilder and the incumbent government diverge less than the preferences of the government and a credible domestic political opposition, the statebuilder can avoid triggering a backlash that undermines statebuilding efforts. Melissa Lee will discuss a study, co-authored with Masanori Kikuchi and William G. Nomikos, which examines this proposition in the context of the U.S. occupation of Japan (1945-1952) through an analysis of legislative speeches in the Japanese Diet.

This talk is part of the Seminar on European Development in a Historical Context at CES.

Further details: https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2024/10/the-domestic-politics-of-international-statebuilding-evidence-from-postwar-japan

Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies Seminar on European Development in a Historical Perspective