Dr Roger Buckley

Dr Roger Buckley

Visiting Fellow

Department of International History

Languages
English
Key Expertise
West & Asia post-1945, Foreign Aid, Southeast Asian International Politics

About me

Dr Roger Buckley was supervised by two former members of the International History Department; for his MA at LSE by Donald Watt (during the 1968 uprising or troubles) and later in the 1970s Japanologist Ian Nish supervised his PhD. Dr Buckley has taught at two Japanese Universities and then did twenty varied years as research fellow and tutor at Oxford's Rothermere American Institute, Mansfield College and St Antony's. 

Asia and the West have limitless fields, containing centuries, cultures and controversies almost without end. Dr Buckley is currently looking at issues surrounding foreign aid - a topic that remains a neglected orphan of post-1945 international politics. His proposed title is "Aiding Asia: The United States, Britain and Japan - Development Strategies Towards Southeast Asia, 1945 to the Present" (Amsterdam University Press, 2025). It intends to be a broad survey of the motives and consequences of assistance in a host of different of political, strategic and economic forms by one great and two middle powers over the past three quarters of a century towards a region that is once again of international interest and concern.

As series editor for "Politics, Security and Society in Asia Pacific" at Amsterdam University Press, he welcomes submissions on both historical and contemporary issues.

His most recent publications are: "US-Japan Human Rights Diplomacy Post 1945: Trafficking, Debates, Outcomes and Documents", vols 1 & 2, (Amsterdam Univ Press,, 2021), ed "Wars and Rumours of War: Japan, the West and Asia Pacific, 1918-1937 (Series 1) and 1937-1945 (Series 2),ed.

Other publications: "The Post-War Occupation of Japan 1945-52,from Pre-Surrender to Post-San Francisco Treaty", (Series 1 and 2), "The United States in the Asia-Pacific since 1945" (CUP,2004), "Japan Today" (CUP,1998), "Hong Kong: The Road to 1997" (CUP,1997), "US-Japan Alliance Diplomacy, 1945-1990" (CUP,1992), "Nippon:New Superpower" (BBC Books,1990), "Occupation Diplomacy: Britain, the United States and Japan, 1945-1952" (CUP,1982)

Expertise Details

West & Asia post-1945; Foreign Aid; Southeast Asian International Politics

Teaching

Previously, Tom has taught the following course in the department:

HY113 - From Empire to Independence: The Extra-European World in the Twentieth Century

HY120 - Historical Approaches to the Modern World

HY329 - Independent India: Myths of Freedom and Development

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• “Student Politics in British India and Beyond: The Rise and Fragmentation of the All India Student Federation (AISF), 1936-1949”, SAMAJ, 22, 2019.

Articles

• "Boris Johnson Wants a Trade Deal with India. But Will the UK Accept Looser Immigration Rules?", The Wire, 24 January 2022.

• "Are we heading for a golden era in British-Indian relations?", The Spectator, 26 January 2020.

• "Digital politics is here to stay", Left Foot Forward, April 2020.

• "The Trump and Modi bromance that is bad news for Boris Johnson", The New European, 27 February 2020.

Blogs

• "Tommy Robinson Claims to Take Political Refuge in Marbella. But His Brand of Right-Wing Extremism Could Still Thrive in the Covid-19 Economic Crisis", August 10th 2020, published on Young Fabians blog.

• “The government’s mishandling of the lockdown easing is creating new resentments and divisions: The Brexit wounds are resurfacing", June 1st 2020, published on Progress Online.

• “JLF 2019 Interview: Sven Beckert ‘Empire of Cotton’”, October 18th, 2019, published on South Asia @ LSE

• “Coronation Park and the Forgotten Statues of the British Raj”, June 20th, 2019, published on LSE International History Blog

• “India 2019: Catching the Clickbait Generation”, May 8th, 2019, published on South Asia @ LSE

• “South Asia: Walls and Bridges”, February 1st, 2019, published on South Asia @ LSE

Presentations

• June 2020: “The Youth Hostel Association of Indian, the Politics of Leisure, and the Shaping of Indian Youth During the Long 1950s", Conference of Society for the History of Children and Youth, Galway, Ireland

• January 2020: “The Labour Camp and the Shaping of the Indian Youth After Independence, circa 1954-1965", Conference on Childhood, Youth and Identity in South Asia, Shiv Nadar University and Ambedkar University Delhi, New Delhi

• May 2019: “Indian Youth and the Defense of the Nation: Youth (De) Mobilisations, Youth Physicality, and the Birth of the National Cadet Core, 1940-1962”, India and Pakistan: The Formative Phase, 1947-1960, British Academy and Royal Holloway, London

• November 2018: “Student Politics in British India and Beyond: The Rise and Fragmentation of the All India Student Federation (AISF), 1936-1949”, South Asia from the Lens of Student Politics, Sciences Po, Paris

• June 2018: “Indian Prison Policy in the 1950s: Everyday Violence, The United Nations and Human Rights”, Retrieving the 1950s as a transitional moment in India’s foreign and domestic policy, Asia Association Studies Conference, New Delhi

• May, 2018: “Growing up a Dalit Youth in India, 1920- 1965”, Narration and ImaginationUCL South Asia ECR Conference, University College London, London

Honours and awards

• 2019 Spring term: Visiting Research Scholar at Columbia University in New York

• 2018 Winter term: Visiting Research Scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi 

• 2019: Royal Historical Society Postgraduate Research Support Grant 

• 2018: Partnership PhD Mobility Scheme Bursary, LSE. Read his Q&A for LSE Academic Partnerships about his time at Columbia University, New York (Spring, 2019).

• 2018: Fellow at the Royal Asiatic Society

• 2017: LSE PhD studentship

• 2015-16: 120th Anniversary LSE Masters Scholarship

Teaching 

• IR211 America as a Global Power: FDR to Trump, Teaching assistant, Teaching Score 4.5/5