Researchers

WATANABE, Shun, PhD
WATANABE, Shun, PhD

Senior Researcher, JIME Center

Specialty:Politics, energy, and security in the Levantine countries

March 2018 Ph.D., Area Studies, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University
March 2015 MA, Area Studies, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University
March 2013

BA, Law, Faculty of Law, the University of Tokyo
October 2022-present Senior Researcher, JIME Center, IEEJ (Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)
2021-September 2022 Researcher, JIME Center, IEEJ (Institute of Energy Economics, Japan)
2018–2020 Sasakawa Peace Foundation Fellow (Visiting), Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford
2018–present Specially Appointed Researcher, Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University

2015–2018

 Research Fellow (DC), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

Research papers

<Ph.D. Thesis>

  • “Governance and Society in the Contemporary Arab Monarchical States: A Case Study of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” (in Japanese, Kyoto University, 2018)

<Reviewed Journal Papers>

  • Watanabe, Shun. “Challenges for National Dialogue in the Post-Arab Spring Era: The Case of Bahrain” Journal of the Asia-Japan Research Institute of Ritsumeikan University, 1, July 2019, pp.56-72.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Political Reflections on Contemporary Monarchies and Its Typologies in the Global Perspective: An Attempt to Analyze Arab Monarchical States and Their Genealogical Legitimacy,” (in Japanese, Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, 11: 256-303, 2018)
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Consensus-Building in Authoritarian Jordan in the midst of the ‘Democratic’ Reform: Analysis on the Legislative Process of the Amendment of the Civil Retirement Law,” (in Japanese, Annals of Japan Association for Middle East Studies, 33, 1: 71-93, 2017).

<Papers>

Publications

  • Kuroda, Ayaka, Watanabe, Shun (eds.) Society, Politics and Ideologies in the Modern Arab East: A Trans-Asian Academic Roundtable.
    Osaka: Asia-Japan Research Institute Ritsumeikan University, 2023.
  • Watanabe, Shun. Ruling Networks and Resource Distributions in the Contemporary Arab Monarchies: Struggle of an Oil Poor Monarchy, Jordan. Kyoto: Nakanishiya Shuppan, 2022 (in Japanese).

Presentations

<Conference >

  • Watanabe, Shun. “Whither Democracy in Arab Lands? Reflections on Political Participation in Monarchial Systems.” International Symposium on "Syrian Refugees in Their Calamities, Survival, and Future Lives: A Japan Roundtable," Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University and the Ritsumeikan Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Japan, June 12, 2022.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Jordan’s Decentralization After 2015: Central Control under Weak Intermediaries.” 2021 BRISMES Annual Conference “Knowledge, Power and Middle Eastern Studies,” University of Kent, UK (Online), July 6, 2021.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Diversifying Sources and Methods of Data Collection: Case of a Research on Middle East Politics.” Sustainability in Research and Education: Expanding the Field from the Asia Pacific, Online Workshop, Field Science Education and Research Center, Kyoto University, Japan (Online), March 11, 2021.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Politics of Reform as a New Ruling Formula in Neoliberal Jordan: The Case of Decentralisation.” Western Intervention in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings: Political Containment, Neoliberalism, and Imperial Legacies, Online Workshop, University of Oxford, UK (Online), February 23, 2021.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Transformation of the Ruling Coalition in Contemporary Jordan: Implications from the Process of Decentralization.” International Workshop for Trans-Asian Academic Communication: Understanding Political Quandaries in the Modern Arab East, Online Workshop, Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University, Osaka, JAPAN (Online), January 26, 2021.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Dynamics of Linchpin Monarchical Rule: Jordan in the Neoliberal Era.” PSA Annual International Conference 2019 “(Un)sustainable Politics in a Changing World.” Nottingham Conference Centre, Nottingham, UK, April 17, 2019.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “Civil Society in Sectarian Politics: Youth Societies in Bahrain.” International Workshop on Stasis and Change in the Contemporary Gulf Monarchies. Waseda University, Tokyo, JAPAN, December 17, 2017.
  • Watanabe, Shun. “The Hashemite Pluralism: Policies of Integration and Control in Jordan.” BRISMES Conference 2017 “Movement and Migration in the Middle East: People and Ideas in Flux,” The University of Edinburgh, UK, July 5-7, 2017.

<Invited Speaker>

  • “Centre-Local Relations in Jordan in the Era of Reform” Department of Social and Political Sciences Research Seminar, Nottingham Trent University, UK (Online), April 21, 2021

Activity on Committee etc.

  • Japan Association for Middle East Studies

  • Japan Association for Comparative Politics

  • Japan Association of International Relations

Others

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