Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan
When do we see social movements mobilize against the American military overseas, and what explains their varying intensity? Despite increasing interest in the vast network of U.S. military bases on foreign soil, it is still not well understood why some host communities resist the bases in their backyards, while others remain compliant.

In Base Towns, Claudia Junghyun Kim addresses this puzzle by investigating the contentious politics surrounding twenty U.S. military bases across Korea and Japan. In particular, she looks at municipalities hosting these bases and differing levels of community acceptance and resistance over time. Drawing on fieldwork interviews, participant observation, and protest event data from 2000-2015, Kim shows that activists occasionally manage to join hands with the otherwise politically inactive local populations when they deliberately subordinate their radical movement goals to more immediate, mundane demands that form the basis of everyday local grievances. Specifically, the activists in base towns successfully build broad anti-base movements when they take advantage of quotidian disruption, adopt culturally resonant movement frames, and ally with local political elites. These activist strategies, however, sometimes end up reinforcing the widely presumed inevitability of the American presence.

In examining activist actions, strategies, and dilemmas, this book sheds light on marginalized actors in domestic and international politics—far removed from elite decision-making processes that shape interstate base politics and yet living with their consequences—who sometimes manage to complicate the operations of America's military behemoth.
1142023104
Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan
When do we see social movements mobilize against the American military overseas, and what explains their varying intensity? Despite increasing interest in the vast network of U.S. military bases on foreign soil, it is still not well understood why some host communities resist the bases in their backyards, while others remain compliant.

In Base Towns, Claudia Junghyun Kim addresses this puzzle by investigating the contentious politics surrounding twenty U.S. military bases across Korea and Japan. In particular, she looks at municipalities hosting these bases and differing levels of community acceptance and resistance over time. Drawing on fieldwork interviews, participant observation, and protest event data from 2000-2015, Kim shows that activists occasionally manage to join hands with the otherwise politically inactive local populations when they deliberately subordinate their radical movement goals to more immediate, mundane demands that form the basis of everyday local grievances. Specifically, the activists in base towns successfully build broad anti-base movements when they take advantage of quotidian disruption, adopt culturally resonant movement frames, and ally with local political elites. These activist strategies, however, sometimes end up reinforcing the widely presumed inevitability of the American presence.

In examining activist actions, strategies, and dilemmas, this book sheds light on marginalized actors in domestic and international politics—far removed from elite decision-making processes that shape interstate base politics and yet living with their consequences—who sometimes manage to complicate the operations of America's military behemoth.
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Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan

Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan

by Claudia Junghyun Kim
Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan
Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan

Base Towns: Local Contestation of the U.S. Military in Korea and Japan

by Claudia Junghyun Kim

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Overview

When do we see social movements mobilize against the American military overseas, and what explains their varying intensity? Despite increasing interest in the vast network of U.S. military bases on foreign soil, it is still not well understood why some host communities resist the bases in their backyards, while others remain compliant.

In Base Towns, Claudia Junghyun Kim addresses this puzzle by investigating the contentious politics surrounding twenty U.S. military bases across Korea and Japan. In particular, she looks at municipalities hosting these bases and differing levels of community acceptance and resistance over time. Drawing on fieldwork interviews, participant observation, and protest event data from 2000-2015, Kim shows that activists occasionally manage to join hands with the otherwise politically inactive local populations when they deliberately subordinate their radical movement goals to more immediate, mundane demands that form the basis of everyday local grievances. Specifically, the activists in base towns successfully build broad anti-base movements when they take advantage of quotidian disruption, adopt culturally resonant movement frames, and ally with local political elites. These activist strategies, however, sometimes end up reinforcing the widely presumed inevitability of the American presence.

In examining activist actions, strategies, and dilemmas, this book sheds light on marginalized actors in domestic and international politics—far removed from elite decision-making processes that shape interstate base politics and yet living with their consequences—who sometimes manage to complicate the operations of America's military behemoth.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780197665275
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 01/24/2023
Series: OXFORD STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POLITICS
Pages: 248
Product dimensions: 9.33(w) x 6.38(h) x 0.87(d)

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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
List of Tables, Figures, and Maps
Chapter 1: Introduction: U.S. Military Base Towns in Korea and Japan
Chapter 2: Explaining Protest (De)mobilization
Chapter 3: Bases in Motion
Chapter 4: Framing Bases
Chapter 5: Governing Bases
Chapter 6: Conclusion: Local Voices in Contentious Base Politics
Appendix
Notes
Index
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