Prof. Higashino
- Professor, Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba
- Ph.D (University of Birmingham)
- Specializes in International relations in Europe
Introduction
| Yuya: Let us start the interview. Please tell us briefly about your name, affiliation, and research interests. |
| Prof. Higashino: I’m Atsuko Higashino in the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba. I am doing research on the EU, which can be divided into two main categories: the first is on institutional relations from the perspective of comparative politics, and the second is on the EU’s external relations from the perspective of international relations. I have been studying the latter, especially the diplomacy of the EU’s neighbors, for about 20 years. Other than that, for the last five or six years, I have been studying the relationship between the EU and China, Taiwan, and other Asian countries. But recently, I have also started to analyze the war in Ukraine itself without denial. |
Connection between doctoral research and current research
| Yuya: I would like to ask you about your Ukrainian research. Have you always been interested in your current research? |
| Prof. Higashino: Yes, I think there is a logical continuity between my current research and the topic I was working on when I was a Doctoral student. My Doctoral Dissertation was on the Eastern enlargement of the EU. In other words, it is called the fifth enlargement, and I was focused on how Eastern European countries such as Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic achieved EU membership. |
| Yuya: How is your PhD research connected to your Ukrainian research? |
| Prof. Higashino: The decision to enlarge the EU to some Central and Eastern European countries was made in December 2002, at which point it was decided that former Soviet Union countries such as Moldova, Ukraine, and Belarus would share borders with the EU. The establishment of relations with Ukraine became a key theme for the EU as part of its neighbor policy in Europe. |
| Yuya: So at this point, in thinking about the EU, Ukraine was an entity that must be included in the perspective. |
| Prof. Higashino: Yes, if we look at the EU’s international relations and neighbor countries policy, I think the analysis of EU-Ukraine relations is, so to speak, a compulsory subject. Since around 2003-2004, when the neighbor countries policy started in earnest, I have been looking at developments in Ukraine and EU-Ukraine relations in parallel with the analysis of the enlargement process with, for example, the former Yugoslav countries and Turkey. |
| Prof. Higashino: If the relationship between the EU and Ukraine had been much smoother, I don’t think I would not have continued to observe to this extent, but it was not a straightforward relationship. |
| Yuya: For what reason was it not straightforward? |
| Prof. Higashino: Ukraine was a country with many problems including organized crime and corruption. So the EU was mindful of how to keep Ukraine’s problems from flowing into the EU. At the beginning of the European Neighborhood, I think the EU’s sense was that it was close to dealing with the troubles; I think the EU had a hard time building relations with Central and Eastern European countries after the collapse of the Cold War, but Ukraine’s reforms were much slower than those in Central and Eastern Europe.
It was very interesting to me to see how the EU continues to deal with building relations with Ukraine in such a situation on a daily basis. |
| Prof. Higashino: The purpose of the EU and NATO’s eastward expansion was to wipe out the borders of the Cold War era. Central and Eastern European countries such as Poland and Hungary were placed in the Eastern camp against their will at the beginning of the Cold War. The Eastern enlargement was an attempt to somehow “return those countries to Europe” and erase the dividing lines in the Cold War.
However the reality is that for a long time, the building of relations between the EU and Ukraine was far from the idea of erasing the boundary line. Rather, it was about how to keep the borders and still be able to deal with each other without danger, which was a very different motivation and necessity than the Eastern enlargement. |
| Yuya: The relationship between Ukraine and the EU is so peculiar, even though they are in the same Europe. |
| Prof. Higashino: That is why it was interesting to take a look at any period in my research with interest to see what these differences were between Ukraine, which is definitely European country, and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. |
Connection between master’s research theme and current research
| Yuya: You mentioned that your doctoral research theme is connected to your current research. Is there any continuity with your master’s research theme and that of current research? |
| Prof. Higashino: During my undergraduate years, the Maastricht Treaty was formulated and entered into force. The EC became the EU, and with that, foreign and security policy also became the policy domain of the EU. In my master’s program, I studied how the EU introduced a common foreign and security policy as a different pillar from the economic policy that had been the main focus of European integration. I think I was interested in how the EU was going to create diplomacy and security. |
What made you being interested in the EU?
| Yuya: What made you being interested in the EU? |
| Prof. Higashino: I think a big part of my original experience was living in the UK for five years as a child, in the mid-1980s, because of my parents’ work. It was just at the time when market integration under the Single European Protocol was underway. I traveled to many places in Europe, and I think it was a time of great hope for Europe. However, when I actually traveled to France and Spain, the towns were messy, there were still many vagrants, and there was still a lot of inequality. Even in England, where I lived, the area around the school was not very safe. |
| Prof. Higashino: In this way, although Europe in the mid-1980s had many problems, there was a dynamism in Europe that tried to move forward with the power of ideas and concepts. I was struck by such a situation in Europe, and that is how I became interested in the EU. |
Similarities and differences between your previous and current research
| Yuya: I think the Ukrainian war that you are currently analyzing has much in common with your previous studies in terms of looking at foreign relations. Is this your first attempt to look at the war itself? |
| Prof. Higashino: Yes, that’s right. I’ve never done real-time work following an ongoing war to see what problems exist and what the outside world can do about it. A lot of the research I’ve done so far has been post-event verification. |
| Prof. Higashino: Right now, I have a great research interest in how the EU is involved in this war, how they are trying to influence it, and how they are trying to end this tragic situation. And as for my analysis of the war in Ukraine, there are areas where I have been able to make use of what I have done so far, and areas where I have not been able to make use of it at all. After all, I have been studying Ukraine from the perspective of the EU, and have done very little research from the Ukrainian perspective. But now I rather feel that it is important and significant to convey the voice of the Ukrainian side to Japan. |
| Prof. Higashino: Thinking about it from the Ukrainian point of view, we can clearly see that there is a gap between what the EU wants and what the Ukraine wants. One of them is the issue of ceasefire. |
| Prof. Higashino: From the perspective of Germany and France, they were willing to compromise certain territory to end the war. However, from Ukraine’s point of view, it is clear throughout that they have no intention to compromise on territory and quit the war. That is, if they compromise in some way, they will lose their lands one after another. |
| Prof. Higashino: Although there must have been a long history of relations between the EU and Ukraine, I was reminded that in a situation like this, the parties involved in the crisis and the countries watching around them see very different things. I probably would not have realized this if I had analyzed the situation only from the EU’s perspective as before. As a result of answering whether I can make use of my research so far in analyzing the war in Ukraine, I realized that I have to modify my ‘point of view’. |
The important point for Prof. Higashino in conducting long-term research
| Yuya: I would like to know if there is anything that you yourself would like to do as you continue your research over the long term. |
| Prof. Higashino: I am now re-examining what the European security order was after all. There have been many documents that have been the basis of friendship in the form of the NATO-Russia “Partnership for Peace,” the “NATO-Russia Basic Protocol,” and the “Rome Protocol,” and Russia itself has signed them. I think Russia and the West have certainly been within one framework and have made various arrangements, but it was only when war broke out that a serious lack of mutual understanding became apparent. |
| Prof. Higashino: This war will end someday, but the challenge of how to coexist in one order with Russia, a force for changing the status quo, is extremely difficult. |
| Prof. Higashino: Faced with the great challenge of how to prevent war rather than maintain order, I feel the need for a fundamental review of international relations not only in Europe but also in Eurasia. |
| Prof. Higashino: I really need to rethink this from scratch, and I don’t think I will have an answer by the time I retire, but I would like to face this problem properly since I am already on board the ship. |
What does research mean to you?
| Yuya: I was really hoping to ask you this question. What kind of activity is academics and research for you? If you have any personal feelings about it, please let us know. |
| Prof. Higashino: As an international political scientist, I’m sensitive to what’s happening every day, but I want to stir up empirical pieces to think about what a peace order in Europe would look like. At the very least, I want to think about how we can create a European order without bloodshed. |
| Prof. Higashino: I don’t expect to have a big, comprehensive answer, and I will probably spend the rest of my life working on scraping together the daily pieces without missing a beat. |
To the current and prospective IPP students
| Yuya: Could you give some message for the current and prospective IPP students? |
| Prof. Higashino: It is difficult to decide a research theme for graduate school. Sometimes you wonder, “Is this a trendy, popular topic?” and so on. However, I would like you to be faithful to what you want to know. I think that many people choose a theme because they think “I have to do this…” regardless of whether they are master’s or doctoral students. To put it bluntly, I would like you to follow your desires. I would like you to put what you want to do first and foremost. Because without that, you won’t be able to write anything good. |
| Prof. Higashino: I think it is better to listen to your inner desire of what you want to do and be true to that desire. This may sound obvious, but I think that because everyone is so clever and thinks too much, they tend to forget how to be true to their own interests and stick to them. |
| Prof. Higashino: IPP program has various professors who are doing various kinds of research, so I think that for those who are thinking of going on to higher education in the humanities or sociology, their interests would apply to any of the professors. I think it is good to find your own interest in such an environment. The strength of this program is that it covers all kinds of fields, isn’t it? |
| Prof. Higashino: The openness that we can communicate with and listen to faculty members who have knowledge in various fields is also attractive. I hope that current students and those who are considering higher education will make use of this advantage. |
| Yuya: Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. |
| Prof. Higashino: Thank you very much. |
