Professor Kota Suechika presented at the 2025 SNUAC Conference on Asian Studies

The 2025 SNUAC Conference on Asian Studies, “Mega-Asia: A New Perspective on Asia,” was held at the Seoul National University Asia Center (SNUAC) in Seoul, South Korea, from November 24 to 28, 2025.

Professor Kota Suechika (RARA Fellow) presented his research titled “Sectarian Identity and Public Support for Armed Non-State Actors: Evidence from Survey Experiments in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen” during Session 2: Comparative Approaches in Asian Studies on the first day of the conference, November 24. The research aimed to reexamine the “sectarian conflict theory,” which has long dominated Middle Eastern political studies, using the latest experimental political science methods.

The findings revealed that when explaining political phenomena in the Middle East, it is not necessarily essential to emphasize sectarianism as a region-specific factor. Instead, security concerns and alliance dynamics play a crucial role, much like in other parts of the world. This approach, which avoids overly treating the Middle East as unique and exceptional, and instead frames it for comparison with other regions, was highly praised by participants for contributing to the development of the new area studies.

For details on the 2025 SNUAC Conference on Asian Studies, please visit the following page.

2025 SNUAC Conference on Asian Studies website