The Center for Positive/Empirical Analysis of Political Economy at Waseda University held an international joint research meeting “WE-SPICE: Waseda-Essex Scientific PoliSci/ IR Collaboration and Exchange 2023” face-to-face. WE-SPICE is a series of workshops connecting people working in scientific politics and international relations at the University of Essex and Waseda University. A face-to-face workshop was held in 2018, an online version of the series was held in winter 2021 and 2022, and this year, in addition to this face-to-face series, an online version will be held from December to January.
From the Japanese side, oral presentations were made mainly by Waseda graduate students, including “International marketplace of foreign aid allocation: The competition in buying influence between China and the U.S.” (Ukyo Kanetaka) and “Provocation and dispute resolutions: An experiment in Vietnam” (Viet Hung Nguyen Cao). Associate Professor Azusa Katagiri of Osaka University presented a paper entitled “Escalatory Behaviors and Credibility Concerns. Dr. Nelson A. Ruiz from the University of Essex presented “Mind and machine: rooting out corrupt politicians” and Dr. Reed M. Wood presented a paper entitled “The Effects of Electoral Violence on Women’s Legislative Representation in Emerging Democracies”. They were interesting studies that applied the latest data sets and methodologies, and they were both very informative in terms of how the topic should be set up. Finally, we did a poster session with three posters entitled “Do Costly Apologies Matter in International Disputes” (YANG, Jaeseog), “Analyzing aggregated response data with generalized multinomial item response theory models” (Ukyo Kanetaka and Hikaru Nukui), and “Public Opinion on U.S. Military Bases in Okinawa” (YANG, Jaeseog). The relatively long one-hour session provided an opportunity for very intensive discussions.
Prof. Ruiz, Prof. Wood, Prof. Tago, Prof. Katagiri
