Assistant Professor Jou’s Business Trip Report (Nazarbayev University)

On February 15th- March 8th, Assistant Professor Jou was invited to Nazarbayev University and made presentations with regards to the political participation.

Date: February 15, 2016 – March 8, 2016

Location: Astana, Kazakhstan

Purpose:

  • Collaborating with Professor Sejin Koo on research projects

 I was invited by Dr. Sejin Koo to visit Nazarbayev University, to discuss a number of collaborative research projects. We presented a co-authored paper at an international conference last August, on the topic of ideological extremism in new democracies and factors that affect its proportion, and we continued revisions of this paper.

We also proposed to work on another paper on the subject of ‘critical citizens’, in the tradition of Pippa Norris’s edited book (1999). This refers to dissatisfaction on the part of citizens who believe that the performance of their democratic governments fall short of democratic ideals. We seek to apply this concept in an East Asian context, specifically identifying the existence, characteristics, and patterns of political engagement of ‘critical citizens’ in South Korea. We have submitted an abstract of this paper to a conference of the Korean Political Science Association scheduled for later this year.

 

  • Giving a presentation at the Department of Political Science and International Relations

 On February 18, I made an hour-long presentation at the Political Science/International Relations (PSIR) Forum, to an audience comprising both faculty members and students. This was followed by a Q&A session. The topic of my talk was factors influencing the likelihood of political participation, with specific focus on the impact of electoral winner/loser status and the ideological distance between individuals and their government.

 

  • Giving a guest lecture

 On February 23, I gave a lecture in Dr. Koo’s comparative politics class, with about 35 undergraduate students. This lecture covered the criteria for democracy, the relationship between democracy and economic development, and causes of democratization.

関連リンク
The23rd ICR Seminar