Description
About the Author
Claudia Junghyun Kim is an assistant professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at City University of Hong Kong. She has written about U.S. military bases overseas, social and transnational movements, global norms, and Korean and Japanese politics. From 2019-2020, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations.
Reviews
Exploring the contentious base politics surrounding the US military presence across the 20 largest individual base locales in Japan and South Korea, Base Towns engages with social movement theory to expand our understanding of the varieties of local base politics. Kim's research is impressive and the mastery of local political nuances and changes in micropolitics is truly commendable, making a significant contribution to the broader field of the politics of US bases. * Alexander Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College *
The United States has more than 500 military bases around the world, and some base towns have accepted these facilities with little dissension while in others their presence has generated open opposition and protest. In this deeply researched, comparative project focused on Korea and Japan, Kim illuminates the factors that lead to open arms in some communities and raised fists in others. Base Towns shows how status quo disruption, framing, and local elites help explain how residents engage with these garrisons. A must read. * Daniel Aldrich, author of Site Fights, Building Resilience, and Black Wave *
Base Towns offers a fascinating, in-depth account of local opposition to U.S. military bases in South Korea and Japan. Drawing on extensive ethnographic field research and protest events data, Professor Kim sheds new insights on the microcosm of U.S. overseas bases in the context of local and global politics. The scholarship is first rate and the base town narratives Kim reveals are compelling. * Andrew Yeo, SK-Korea Foundation Chair and senior fellow, Brookings Institution; Professor of Politics, the Catholic University of America; and author of Activists, Alliances, and Anti-Base Protests *
Since the end of the Cold War, scholarly interest in the global U.S. military presence has mushroomed. Claudia Kim's Base Towns, focused on Japan and South Korea, makes an important and original contribution to this undertaking. By emphasizing 'the primacy of the local,' Kim argues persuasively that pragmatic considerations take precedence over ideology or international politics in shaping relations between U.S. military garrisons abroad and nearby communities. * Andrew Bacevich, author of On Shedding an Obsolete Past *
Claudia Junghyun Kim's history of local opposition to US%military bases in Japan and South Korea is meticulously researched and smoothly written. * Steve Rabson, Pacific A!airs: Volume 97 *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197665275
Author Claudia Junghyun Kim
Format Hardback
Page Count 248
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 526g
Dimensions(mm) 162mm * 237mm * 22mm