【Report】The tenth session of the Global Studies Seminar series “Challenges in Global Studies” “Coming Near Africa: An Approach from Political Science”

Speaker: ENDO Mitsugi (Professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo)

Moderator: DATE Kiyonobu (Department of Area Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)

Discussant:TANABE Akio (Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences)
KOKUBUN Koichiro (Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences）

To learn more about the Global Studies Seminar series “Challenges in Global Studies,” click here.

【Report】

The Global Studies Seminar series “Challenges in Global Studies” held its tenth session on Friday, February 19th, 2021, inviting Professor Mitsugi Endo (Professor at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the University of Tokyo) to give a lecture titled “Coming Near Africa: An Approach from Political Science.”

Endo has been engaged in research that bridges over the fields of comparative politics, international politics, and African politics. Central to his work has been the theme of conflict and failed states, on which he has conducted a comparative study taking into account both the perspectives of local African societies and the global context of world history. Endo’s research on Africa initially grew out of his interest in the area of “global issues,” which he pursued as a college student at Komaba, one of the rare institutions at the time that offered classes in this advanced discipline. The classes in international relations introduced him to global problems such as food security and environmental issues. With a growing awareness of the need for a practical research that would help tackle these problems, Endo’s eyes were turned to Africa, as well as to the international society’s engagements in this region.

Endo explained that in his subsequent research, he first focused on “studying Africa as a region.” During his research abroad in the UK, where he investigated the then ongoing democratization in South Africa and its neighboring regions, Endo developed his interest in a comparative analysis using the concept of “civil society.” His fieldwork in Zambia further shed light on the effectiveness of using “civil society” as an analytical concept for examining democratization as well as the significance of evaluating political systems in the eyes of civil society, which, he argued, led to the later expansion of the scope of his research.

His comparative politics perspective was further reinforced as studies on the political impact of “non-state actors” gradually took off in the field of international relations. At the annual congress of the Japanese Political Science Association in 2019, Endo reported on the backlashes against democracy in the African region, bringing up the rise of “Neoliberal Authoritarianism” as a related phenomenon. In addition, teaching the class “Conflict, Reconciliation and Coexistence” as part of the newly founded Graduate Program on Human Security (HSP) at Komaba provided him with the next step for developing his research. In face of increasing cases of failed states and unrecognized states in conflict-ridden regions, Endo embarked on investigating “failed states” and “diasporas” in the Somali region, stretching his research to deal with broader issues surrounding the “Horn of Africa.” His work on the Somali region fostered interactions with researchers in Middle Eastern Studies, leading to the launching of two joint projects: “Global Relations Studies” and “African Potentiality.” Endo sees himself still halfway through in positioning African Studies in the political science discipline, and emphasized the need to continue exploring and actively engage in the “African” region bringing in younger researchers to participate in joint projects.

Endo’s lecture was received by a number of questions including those concerning: the future prospects in political science and international relations seen from the African regional studies point of view, the shifting significance of the African region in the global order, the nature of “Neoliberal Authoritarianism” observed in Rwanda and Ethiopia, and the future concerning the “freedom” of Africa. These questions were further followed by a lively discussion over the religious impacts on African politics and authoritarianism, the enduring effects of the Apartheid, as well as the notion of “Africa” in both the broader and in the narrow sense of the term.

【HAN Ahram（Graduate Student at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences）】

【translated by ELLIS Naomi (Ph.D. Student at the University of California, Los Angeles)】