Professor, Department of Political Science, Director Emeritus, Institute of Asian Research, Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research and Director of the Center for Japanese Research, The University of British Columbia (UBC)
Personal Website
https://politics.ubc.ca/persons/yves-tiberghien/
Twitter
@Yves_Global
Profile
Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002; Harvard Academy Scholar 2006; Fulbright Scholar 1996) is a Professor of Political Science and Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is also the Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research and Director of the Center for Japanese Research at UBC. Yves is a Visiting Professor at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (National Tsinghua University, Taiwan) and an adjunct Chair Professor, International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS), National Chengchi University in Taipei.
Yves is a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Foundation of Canada and a Senior Fellow at the University of Alberta’s China Institute. He is an International Steering Committee Member at Pacific Trade and Development Conference (PAFTAD) and a visiting professor at Sciences Po Paris. He has held other visiting positions at Tokyo University, GRIPS (Tokyo), and the Jakarta School of Public Policy (Indonesia).
In November 2017, he was made a Chevalier de l’ordre national du mérite by the French President.
His research focuses on the comparative political economy of East Asia and on global economic and environmental governance. His latest book is The East Asian Covid-19 Paradox (2021. Cambridge University Press, with post-2021 updates found here), to be soon followed by a second one, titled East Asia’s COVID Responses: Long-Term Lessons.
He is working on three other books, respectively titled The Hedgers: the Global South in A Transactional World (with Zaki Laidi), Up for Grabs: Disruption, Competition, and the Remaking of the Global Order and Navigating the Age of Disruption: Options in a Shifting Global Order. He is also leading a research project on the political economy of the twin industrial revolutions (digital/AI and green tech).
His previous books include Entrepreneurial States: Reforming Corporate Governance in France, Japan, and Korea (2007, Cornell University Press); L’Asie et le futur du monde (2012, Paris: Science Po Press); and Leadership in Global Institution-Building: Minerva’s Rule (2013, edited volume, Palgrave McMillan). In 2020, he edited an online collection of papers on Japan’s leadership in the Liberal International Order.
In 2023, he co-edited an online collection of short papers on the political economy of the twin industrial revolutions (AI and green tech) in Japan and East Asia. He has published articles and book chapters on the political economy of Japan and China, global governance, global climate change politics, and the governance of agricultural biotechnology.
Dr. Tiberghien co-founded the Vision 20 initiative in 2015, a new coalition of global scholars and policy-makers aiming at providing a long-term perspective on the challenges of global economic and environmental governance.
Selected Publication
Books
Books in Progress
Recent Analysis
Recent Articles
Recent Book Chapters
2020 Tiberghien, Yves. “The Battle over GMOs in Korea and Japan” in Esarey, Ashley, Mary Alice Haddad, Stevan Harrell, and Joanna Lewis Ed. Eco-Developmentalism in East Asia. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
2020 Tiberghien, Yves. “Asia’s Rise and the Transition to a Post-Western Global Order.” In Contending Views on the Decline of Western-Centric World and the Emerging Global Order in the 21st Century, edited by Yun-han Chu and Yongnian Zheng. London: Routledge. Pp. 357-378.
2020 Tiberghien, Yves. « La nouvelle route de la soie, pivot des relations commerciales contemporaines ? » (the New Silk Road, anchor of contemporary global trade relations?), in Delas, Olivier ed. Relations commerciales internationales: l’Union Européenne et l’Amérique du nord à l’heure de la nouvelle route de la soie. Bruxelles : Larcier. Pp. 23-34.
2020 Tiberghien, Yves. « Les relations Union Européenne -Chine » in Delas, Olivier ed. Relations commerciales internationales: l’Union Européenne et l’Amérique du nord à l’heure de la nouvelle route de la soie. Bruxelles : Larcier. Pp. 253-274.
2020 Tiberghien, Yves. « Divergence and convergences des positions Chine- -Union Européenne - États-Unis dans les crises internationales » in Delas, Olivier ed. Relations commerciales internationales: l’Union Européenne et l’Amérique du nord à l’heure de la nouvelle route de la soie. Bruxelles : Larcier. Pp. 533-540.
Research Interests
Yves’ research specializes in East Asian comparative political economy, international political economy, and global economic and environmental governance, with an empirical focus on China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Europe
Teaching
The Transformation of Global Order in the 21st Century
The age of a stable US-dominated order is over. We have entered a period of great competition for global rules and norms, a battle between connectivity and fragmentation, and a confrontation between old powers and new rising powers.
We are also facing a perfect storm that combines globalization-induced dislocations and a democratic crisis in US and Europe; a climate change crisis challenging our entire economic model; the greatest pandemic since 1919; a powerful AI-centered/digital technological revolution; the greatest shift in the balance of power in over a century (over 20% of economic power shifting hands from advanced Western democracies to emerging countries between 2000 and 2018); the massive and threatening rise of China; and a US revolt against the global institutions it created (2016-2020). Asia (and soon Africa) are rising across the board in all sub-regions, recovering a voice that was lost since pre-colonial times, ushering a much more diverse and multipolar world. According to the IMF’s current forecasts, over 60% of world economic growth will take place in Asia between now and 2030. The two dominant powers, the US and China, are locked into an ever-worsening spiral of trade conflict and security competition, a process made worse by misperceptions and emotional reactions and threatening to engulf the world economy. Is the US intent on destroying the rules-based order it nurtured for decades, in order to stop the rise of China? Or is the US just seeking to adjust rules and the division of benefits? Is China intent on uprooting the Western liberal order, or is China just seeking to gain a bigger voice within existing economic and global institutions, while retaining its historically-derived governance? What is the role of other emerging powers and non state actors in the competition for the new world order?
This course unpacks this new dynamic period of world history when traditional institutions and norms cannot be taken for granted. Large states are engaging in a process of strategic interactions mediated by domestic historical frames, an interaction that will determine our future world. And power has been diffused to a larger number of non state actors.
The course begins with an overview of the theoretical dilemmas of global coordination and different approaches to global governance, including the dilemmas and obstacles involved in creating the post-war liberal order. The course also analyzes the growing role played by China in various dimensions of global governance, as well as the US-China tensions. The second part focuses on seven thematic arenas: global finance, global trade, development models, climate change and energy politics, global pandemic management (Covid-19), global digital/AI governance, and changing regional governance models.
The course will include a variety of activities, including lively lectures, movie excerpts, discussions, debates, and live discussions with global leaders and policy-makers. Lecture notes will be available by email, as well as additional resources. The instructor will be available for further discussion in person or by email. Students will get involved with participation in global summits through the Vision20 framework, within the constraints of the program.