Klein Family Presidential Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania; Director of the World House Student Fellows Program, Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania
Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Local Affiliate & Seminar Chair, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
The conventional wisdom in the study of international statebuilding holds that such interventions trigger a backlash among the population in the host state that causes statebuilding efforts to fail. But this need not be the case. When the political preferences of the statebuilder and the incumbent government diverge less than the preferences of the government and a credible domestic political opposition, the statebuilder can avoid triggering a backlash that undermines statebuilding efforts. Melissa Lee will discuss a study, co-authored with Masanori Kikuchi and William G. Nomikos, which examines this proposition in the context of the U.S. occupation of Japan (1945-1952) through an analysis of legislative speeches in the Japanese Diet.