Political Science Prof. Shapiro conducting green technology research in Korea
Associate Professor of Political Science Matthew Shapiro is spending five weeks in South Korea this summer, serving as an Asiatic Research Institute Fellow at Korea University and researching green technology innovation in East Asia.
Through his position at the Asiatic Research Institute, Shapiro is studying the viability of an environmental technology regime across the Northeast Asian region. He is meeting with key actors in the green technology generation process - “not necessarily scientists and engineers, but the strategists,” he says.
“This is the first step of four, as I will also conduct similar interviews in Japan, China, and Taiwan later in the year,” Shapiro says.
On Monday, July 28, Shapiro delivered a presentation on his research to an audience at Korea University. The presentation, titled "East Asian environmental regionalism: a preliminary evaluation of the South Korean perspective," explains a model Shapiro developed to illustrate the relationships between what he believes are the “key forces” at work in the mitigation of cross-national pollution, including greenhouse gases.
“There are international institutions at work, contributing to region-based institutions, which in turn contribute ultimately to what I and others label ‘epistemic community building,’” Shapiro says. “The basic idea behind this concept is that scientists and engineers from different countries are working together under formal and informal channels; ‘formal’ in the sense that there are specific policies and programs in place to foster cross-national collaboration; ‘informal’ in the sense that scientists and engineers may turn to experts in other countries for help and knowledge exchange.”
Studies of environmental innovation in Northeast Asia are particularly important for a few reasons, according to Shapiro. First, he says, there is a focus on green technology in the region; second, China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are all high-tech oriented; and third, pollution from China is currently affecting the region, which Shapiro says is “driving even more epistemic community building.”
The model Shapiro developed could ultimately help improve the efficiency of governments in mitigating cross-national environmental issues.
“This model of international pollution flows has implications for how environmental problems - climate change included - can be addressed through smaller numbers of participants and especially with a particular focus on technology generation,” Shapiro says. “Collective action problems plague broad and costly issues such as climate change. Thus, a study on the Northeast Asian case provides a crucial understanding for how we can reduce greenhouse gases. If China is successfully affected - i.e., if its greenhouse gas emissions are adequately reduced - it can serve as a model for other large, high greenhouse gas-emitting countries such as the U.S., Russia, India, and Brazil.”
As a professor of political science in the Department of Social Sciences at Illinois Institute of Technology, Shapiro teaches courses on research methods, public policy, political economy, and Asian politics. He has two new research publications forthcoming: one on how science is politicized in YouTube videos covering climate change, which will be published in Social Science Information, and another on networks of green technology generation, which will be published in the Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia. To learn more about Shapiro and his work, visit his website.
