Oxford International Politics Summer School(July 31st - August 13th)
Manami Tsukamoto

This summer I participated in Oxford International Politics Summer School held at
St.Antony's College. The program hosted around 70 participants, and many of the students
were working people rather than university students. Classmates who became one of myclosest friends were all out of studies, working as a consultant, a journalist, or as a marketing
manager. Thus I would say a good majority had or were working on their masters or Ph.D.
degree. In terms of gender distribution, I had the impression that the women to men ratio werearound 6:4 with around half of the men being quite mature, their ages ranging from 40~late 70s.
Within the program I attended “Europe in Crisis? Key Transformations in European
Democracies and the European Union”, which was the largest group of all 5 courses and held atotal of 15 students.

The program consisted mainly of three parts: seminars (the ‘course’ I previously described),
lectures (an hour and a half session in which professors from each course + invited lecturers
presented their research), and discussions (in which students from various courses cometogether to discuss implications of the lecture content). What was most stimulating out of theentire program were the discussion groups. This non-mandatory session was a precious
opportunity to interact with students from different courses and warm up with those I haven’t had
the chance to talk to. Students were randomly assigned to a different time slot/mentor so as all
discussion groups had at least one student from each course. Since each course covered
different regions of the world --China, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Russia— the sessions
at times operated in semi-Model United Nations mode, with students from each course
participating in discussions as representatives of their regions. Thus the sessions were useful inthe sense that we were, to a certain extent, forced to regurgitate the insights we gained fromclassroom discussions/readings and apply them to more abstract themes such as the validity of
the current international order.
I held two objectives coming to this Oxford program: one was to clarify my research topic formy final paper, and the other was to learn the headspace of my intellectual peers --where theiracademic interest lies, and what they seek to pursue. The second was most definitely achieved
through participation in discussion groups and engagement in night-time bar excursions or
casual post-lecture talks with my peers. Of my peers’ interests included the below: risingtensions between the West and East, subliminal discrimination against Muslims/people of color
through selective policies, rise in populism, and the environmental issues as well as the unequal
distribution of its effects. Through the seminar and talks with my peers, I’ve come to sense that
there is hegemony based on certain values and priorities (i.e. democratic values such as naturalrights and capitalistic priorities) that is acting as a detriment even within Europe, its negativities
which surface especially in tensions between Western Europe and Eastern Europe. While far
from clarity, this realization would most certainly be an important puzzle piece for my futureresearch.
I express my most sincere gratitude for your funding, which has allowed me to gain the
precious experience of studying at Oxford and surrounding myself with truly talented peers.
Being able to share our respective interests and have discussions regarding the current
international order was one of the most insightful and enriching experiences I have had out ofmy entire university experience thus far. The thought-provoking stimulations I’ve gained and theconnections I’ve made would be valuable assets for my future career, whether I choose toremain in academia or pursue a job. Thank you very much for your generous support, and I
hope to utilize this opportunity so as to contribute to positive societal change in the near future.