Author Meets Critics: Diana Kim's "Empires of Vice"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

This panel will bring together leading scholars of comparative and transnational political development to discuss Diana Kim's forthcoming 2020 Princeton University Press book, "Empires of Vice: The Rise of Opium Prohibition across Southeast Asia." Kim tells a startling story of state formation in SE Asia, documenting how the everyday actions of colonial bureaucrats, French and British, fundamentally shaped the path of political development of today’s Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam. She joins rigorous historical methods with a theoretical perspective that demonstrates a supple approach to how power can be consolidated through bureaucratic and symbolic activities. Scholars including Professors Sheri Berman, Deborah Yashar, Kathleen McNamara, Anna Grzymala-Busse, Rachel Riedl, and Kimberly Morgan will assess Kim's ideas and arguments in light of their own widely varying regional and transnational work, from Africa to Europe to the EU to the US to Latin America. The panel will therefore be a global, comparative, and wide ranging debate around the sources of state formation and political authority construction over time, shedding light on the roots of today's democratic dysfunctions.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Chair

• Anna M. Grzymala-Busse Stanford University

Presenters

• Sheri Berman Barnard College, Columbia University

• Kathleen R. McNamara Georgetown University

• Rachel Beatty Riedl Cornell University

• Deborah Yashar Princeton University

• Kimberly J. Morgan George Washington University

• Diana Kim Georgetown University