Associate Professor, History
Ph.D. National University of Ireland
M.A. National University of Ireland
Office: Lowerre Academic Center, Office 8
Phone: +41 91 986 36 39
Email: fhoey@fus.edu
Fintan Hoey is a historian of modern Japan and of U.S.-Japanese relations, with research interests in nuclear proliferation, the Cold War in Asia and American diplomatic history.
His research monograph, Satō, America and the Cold War on U.S.-Japanese diplomatic and security relations during the tenure of Satō Eisaku, Prime Minister of Japan, 1964-1972, was published in 2015. This draws on recently released material from the Japanese Foreign Ministry Archive as well as US archival material and Satō’s diary. The book, the first major study in English, argues that Satō’s foreign policy was not motivated by a slavish adherence to Washington but from a realist appraisal of Japan’s security imperatives.
More recently his research has focused on nuclear proliferation, particularly Japan’s role in the emergence of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its attempts to secure full freedom of action in its pursuit of nuclear power technology. He is a member of several global research collaborations including, the Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, the Nuclear Diplomacies collaboration of diplomatic historians and historians of science, and the Constitutional History of the NPT, a project funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York which will provide expert briefings to the Treaty’s Review Conference.
In 2019 he was an SNF-funded fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC. He has held research appointments at Kyoto University and Rikkyo University, Tokyo and teaching appointments at Queen’s University Belfast and Maynooth University, Ireland.
In addition to teaching courses related to his research interests, his wider teaching interests include modern France, modern Ireland and the British empire. He is the co-founder and director of the Minor in Postcolonial Studies.
Publications:
Books:
Satō, America and the Cold War. US-Japanese Relations, 1964-1972. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
Journal Articles:
‘The ‘Conceit of Controllability’: Nuclear diplomacy, Japan’s plutonium reprocessing ambitions and U.S. proliferation fears, 1974-1978.’ History and Technology, 31 no. 1 (2021): 44-66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2021.1882126.
‘Japan and Extended Deterrence. Security and Non-proliferation.’ Journal of Strategic Studies 39, no. 4. (2016): 484-501. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01402390.2016.1168010.
‘The Nixon Doctrine and Nakasone Yasuhiro’s Unsuccessful Challenge to Japan’s Defense Policy, 1969-1971.’ The Journal of American-East Asian Relations 19, no. 1 (2012): 52-74. https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/187656112X651308.
Book chapters:
‘Non-Nuclear Japan? Satō, the NPT, and the US Nuclear Umbrella.’ In Negotiating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Origns of the nuclear order.Edited by Liviu Horovitz, Roland Popp, and Andreas Wenger. London: Routledge, 2017.
Other Publications:
‘Japan and the NPT: From Target to Champion.’ Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, 2020, Carnegie Corporation of New York NPT Constitutional History Consortium. Policy Background Brief.
Books and articles Reviews:
H-Diplo Article Review 1003 on Kitamura. “Runaway Orientalism: MGM’s Teahouse and U.S.-Japanese Relations in the 1950s” and on Nishikawa. “The Origin of the U.S-Japan Dispute over the Whaling Moratorium.” November 2020. https://hdiplo.org/to/AR1003.
H-Diplo Article Review 979 on Aldous. “The Anatomy of Allied Occupation: Contesting the Resumption of Japanese Antarctic Whaling, 1945-52.” September 2020. https://hdiplo.org/to/AR979.
‘Review by Fintan Hoey,’ H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-23 on How to Reach Japan by Subway: America’s Fascination with Japanese Culture, 1945-1965 and on Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America, 13 January 2020, https://hdiplo.org/to/RT21-23.
‘Review by Fintan Hoey,’ H-Diplo Roundtable XXI-19 on Jennifer M. Miller. Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan, 9 Dec. 2019, https://hdiplo.org/to/RT21-19
‘Review of The Korean War: An international history by Wada Haruki’ International History Review 13, no. 1. Published online 12 September 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2016.1227550.
‘Review of Rethinking Japanese Public Opinion and Security: From Pacifism to Realism? by Paul Midford’ International History Review 37, no. 5 (2015): 1104-1105 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2015.1057971.
Review of Historical Dictionary of United States-Japanese Relations by John Van Sant, Peter Mauch, and Yoneyuki Sugita. H-US-Japan, H-Net Reviews. August 2009. http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23063.
Works in Progress:
Controlling the Uncontrollable: America’s Failed Quest to Prevent the Nuclear Future, Monograph
Checked Hegemon: U.S. non-proliferation policy and the challenge of the Global South. [peer reviewed article] (2022)
Japan, Korea, and the U.S. in the Trump Era, Ohio State University Mershon Center for International Security Studies research project on U.S.-Korean relations, 2017-2020 [book chapter] (2021)
Japan and NPT: Nuclear Weapons and Energy Security, The Constitutional History of the NPT, Carnegie Corporation of New York Research Corporation [book chapter] 2022
Awards and Honors:
FUS Excellence in Teaching award, 2013; 2021
Swiss National Science Fund, Scientific Exchange – Research Visit, research funding, 2019
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, visiting fellow, 2019
Society for Historians of America’s Foreign Relations/Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, Summer Institute on Nuclear Weapons History, 2013, selected participant