The SMU Tower Center would like to invite you to the Sun and Star Lecture: Social Movements and Authoritarian Elections In Kazakhstan

Date: Wednesday, December 4, 2024, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.

Location: HT Chamber, Ground Floor, Hughes-Trigg Student Center, 3140 Dyer St, Dallas, TX  75205

Parking: Binkley Garage, 3105 Binkley Ave. (between Airline Rd. & Dyer St.)

Lunch will be provided.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required. Please click below for registration.

Mass protests are one of the most imminent threats to autocratic regimes in the post-Cold War era. In this presentation, Masaaki Higashijima will talk about the dynamics of protests in authoritarian regimes by focusing on how autocrats manage various social movements which aim at achieving different goals. Focusing on the case of Kazakhstan, where anti-government protests have threatened the autocratic government over the past years, he focuses on when protests grow large in electoral autocracies.

Featuring:

Masaaki Higashijima, Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Tokyo

Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. He is currently affiliated with the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. His research interests lie in comparative political economy, autocratic politics, regime change, and Central Asia. His first book, the Dictator’s Dilemma at the Ballot Box: Electoral Manipulation, Economic Maneuvering, and Political Order in Autocracies (University of Michigan Press,2022), won the IDE-JETRO Award for the Studies of Developing Countries and the Ed A Hewett Book Prize (Honorable Mention, Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies [ASEEES]). His work has appeared in premier journals such as Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and World Development. He has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Michigan State University.

Moderator:

Hiroki Takeuchi, Director, Sun and Star Program on Japan and East Asia, SMU Tower Center

Hiroki Takeuchi received his B.A. of Economics from Keio University in Japan, his M.A. of Asian Studies from University of California at Berkeley, and his Ph.D. of Political Science from University of California at Los Angeles. He is currently an Associate Professor of political science, and Director of the Sun and Star Program on Japan and East Asia in the Tower Center at SMU. Previously, he taught at UCLA as a faculty fellow of  the Political Science Department and at Stanford University as a postdoctoral teaching fellow of the Public Policy Program. Professor Takeuchi's research and teaching interests include Chinese and Japanese politics, comparative political economy of authoritarian regimes, and international relations of East Asia, as well as applying game theory to political science.

Any person who requires a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability in order to participate in this program should contact the SMU Tower Center at tower@smu.edu in advance at least 4 days prior to the event to arrange for the accommodation.

SMU Tower Center | http://www.smu.edu/TowerCenter

Southern Methodist University (SMU)

3300 University Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75275-0117

214-768-3954  tower@smu.edu