Neutrality Studies
  • Books
    • Notions of Neutralities
    • Permanent Neutrality
    • Engaged Neutrality
    • The European Neutrals and NATO
    • Sweden, Japan and WWII
  • Events
    • Conferences
    • Workshops
  • Members
    • Pascal Lottaz
    • Herbert R. Reginbogin
    • Heinz Gärtner
    • Johanna Rainio-Niemi
    • Vasileios Syros
    • Andrew Cottey
    • Eric Golson
    • Hillary Briffa
  • Info
    • Blog
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Dr. Pascal Lottaz

pascal.lottaz@neutralitystudies.com
Publications
Talks
Lectures
​I'm a Swiss researcher and educator based in Tokyo. On this page you will find information about my academic work, learning resources, and educational materials.
​If you are a student go to the Lectures section to find class power points and materials. 
​
  • Biography
  • Research
  • Projects
  • Affiliations
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​Pascal was born in 1985, in Fribourg, Switzerland. At the age of eighteen, he spent one year at a Japanese High School, in Wakayama prefecture. He studied Philosophy and History at the University of Fribourg and came to Tokyo for the first time in 2010 for an internship at the Minato City Office. He has obtained a master’s degree in Public Policy (2012) and a PhD in International Relations (2018), both at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo. From 2019–2022 Pascal was Assistant Professor for Neutrality Studies at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study. He is currently an adjunct researcher at the same institute and adjunct professor for Contemporary European Politics at Temple University, Japan Campus.
 
Pascal’s research focuses on neutral states, diplomacy, and Japan before the Second World War. He has published two edited volumes on Neutrality in International Relations, articles about Swiss–Japanese diplomatic relations, and he is currently co-authoring a book on “Sweden, Japan and the Long Second World War (1931–1945).” 
​I'm mainly working on the study of neutrality as a concept in international relations. Why and how do neutral actors in the international system behave the way they do? How come that over millennia the "neutral idea" has been coming up again and again? I am also trying to understand the behavior of neutral actors in inter-state conflicts and their impact on the genesis and development of wars.

This topic used to be a significant concern of historians, scholars of international law, and political scientists but has fallen out of fashion after WWII. The Cold War bipolar security environment made the law and logic of neutrality—inventions of earlier centuries—largely redundant. Although the post-1945 era saw the unprecedented flourishing of nonaligned states, this loosely defined sister concept has also lost most of its usefulness after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dawn of the current unipolar security architecture.

Nevertheless, the historical record suggests that neutrality policies are ‘natural’ occurrences that survive not in the heads of theoreticians but on the chessboard of international power-politics. The nature of neutrality, meanwhile, changes with the nature of war, which would suggest that new approaches to war breed new approaches to neutrality. But do these observations hold true under any security environment? What are the limits of neutrality policies in terms of their systemic security function? What are their potentials? What are the humanitarian implications for the twenty-first century? And how are new neutral actors interpreting and managing their policy choices?

I am using a mix of historical case studies combined with statistical analysis of different neutralities to investigate these questions. The spectrum of my research project is broad, and I am as much interested in uncovering particular issues of individual neutralities, as I want to understand the global ramifications of nonaligned positions during negotiations, conflict, war, and in the global nuclear regime. I am working on several sub-projects to approach the overall goal of this research.

Neutral Beyond the Cold: The Value of Neutral States to the Post-Cold War International System
Edited volume with Heinz Gärtner and Herbert R. Reginbogin
Expected for 2021, Publisher TBD
​Download Project Paper


Switzerland, Japan,  and the Long Second World War, 1931–1945
Monograph
Expected for 2022, Publisher TBD

Arguments for Neutrality and Nonalignment: The Warren Unna Newsletters, 1958–1959
Critical Edition of the Warren Unna Newsletters.
Expected for 2022, Publisher TBD
Download Project Paper

The Neutrals and the Bomb: The Emergence of the Nonproliferation Regime outside the Blocks
Edited volume with Yoko Iwama
Expected for 2022, Publisher TBD

Neutrality in International Relations
Textbook
Expected for 2023, TBD
Waseda Institute for Advanced Study
Adjunct Researcher
Temple University Japan Campus
Adjunct Professor
​International Studies Association, Diplomatic Studies Section
Secretary
International Institute for Peace
Advisory Board Member
 

Publications

Monographs
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Open Access!
Sweden, Japan, and the Long Second World War 1931–1945 
  • With Ingemar Ottosson.
  • London: Routledge, 2021 LINK
Edited Books
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Open Access (In French)
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(In German)

Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice
  • ​Reginbogin, Herbert & Lottaz, Pascal Eds.Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. LINK
Notions of Neutralities
  • Lottaz, Pascal & Reginbogin, Herbert Eds. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019. LINK
Journal d'un Témoin: Camille Gorgé, Diplomat Suisse dans le Japon en Guerre 1940-1945 
  • Donzé, P. Y., Hauser, C., Lottaz, P., & Maître, A. Eds. Quaderni di Dodis, Vol. 10 Berne: Diplomatic Documents of Switzerland, 2018 DOWNLOAD
Konflikte wagen—Frieden leben: Ein Manual zur Gewaltprävention bei Jugendlichen
  • ​Müller, X., Steger, R., Grünenfelder, B., & Lottaz, P. Norderstedt: BoD, 2014. 
Journal Articles
The Politics and Diplomacy of Neutrality 
  • Oxford Bibliographies in International Relations (2022). LINK
Neutrality Studies 
  • Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies (2022). LINK
Going East: Switzerland’s Early Consular Diplomacy toward East and Southeast Asia.
  • Traverse: Zeitschrift für Geschichte - Revue d’Histoire, (1), 2020, 23–34. LINK
Violent Conflicts and Neutral Legations: A Case Study of the Spanish and Swiss Legations in Wartime Japan
  • New Global Studies, 11(2), 2017, 85-100. LINK
Book Chapters
Vatican Diplomacy and Church Realities in the Philippines during World War II 
  • In Breger, M. & Reginbogin H. The Vatican and Permanent Neutrality. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2022. LINK
The Logic of Neutrality
  • In H. Reginbogin & P. Lottaz (Eds.), Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. LINK
Taiwanese Neutrality: Solving the Conundrum
  • With Herbert Reginbogin
  • In H. Reginbogin & P. Lottaz (Eds.), Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. LINK
The Nomos of Neutrality in East Asia 
  • With Herbert Reginbogin
  • In H. Reginbogin & P. Lottaz (Eds.), Permanent Neutrality: A Model for Peace, Security, and Justice. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2020. LINK
Neutrality and Wartime Japan
  • In P. Lottaz & H. Reginbogin (Eds.), Notions of Neutralities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019. LINK
'Private Neutrality' – The Bank for International Settlements
  • With Herbert Reginbogin
  • In P. Lottaz & H. Reginbogin (Eds.), Notions of Neutralities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019.  LINK
The Vatican, WWII, and Asia: Lessons of Neutral Diplomacy 
  • With Florentino Rodao
  • In P. Lottaz & H. Reginbogin (Eds.), Notions of Neutralities. Lanham: Lexington Books.  LINK
Thesis
Neutral States and Wartime Japan: The Diplomacy of Sweden, Spain, and Switzerland toward the Empire (Ph.D. Thesis)
  • National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, 2018. DOWNLOAD
​R2P in East and Southeast Asia (Master Thesis)
  • National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Tokyo, 2012. 
Newspaper and Magazine Articles
  • What a 'Neutralization' of Ukraine Actually Means, Modern Diplomacy, March 25, 2022.
  • Ukraine will either be Permanently Neutral or Permanently Divided, Modern Diplomacy, March 9, 2022.
  • Why permanent neutrality is right for Ukraine (with Nasir A. Andisha), TRT World, March 3, 2022.
  • Die Neutralität der Mongolei: Ein schönes Pferd (with Tumurjin Ganbaatar), International, no. 4 (2021) 40–43.
  • EU-Neutrale als «strategische Schnorrer»? [in German] International Online, July 15, 2021.
  • Ein «gemeinsames Bedrohungsverständnis», [in German] Nachdenkseiten, June 30, 2021. 
  • Eine internationalistische Neutralität im Dienste Europas, [An International Neutrality in the Service of Eruope], International, no. 3 (2021), 7–9.
  • Sri Lanka Discovers Neutrality: Strategy or Excuse? (with Asanka Prabodani Jayathilake) The Diplomat (March 19, 2021). 
  • A Solution for the Ukrainian quagmire, Washington Times, 2018.
  • Neutralität: Wer hat‘s Erfunden?, Nau.ch, 2019.
  • Neutralität: Ein dehnbares Konzept, Nau.ch, 2019.
  • Neutrale Staaten: Ein Spezieller Klub, Nau.ch, 2019.
  • Neutralität heisst nicht Isolationismus, Nau.ch, 2019.
  • Neutralität ist nicht Pazifismus Nau.ch, 2019.
  • Neutralität und Sicherheit Nau.ch, 2019.
 

Talks

Sicherheit durch Neutralität
(In German: Interview with Magazine "International")

Pascal talks about the creative options neutral Austria has in this decade, and how neutral European states can contribute to European security without becoming NATO members.

USA and the World: The World after US Elections
(Discussion, November 24, 2020)

HANNES SWOBODA, President of the International Institute for Peace (IIP), former ME; LUIZA BIALASIEWICZ, University of Amsterdam; HEINZ GÄRTNER, University of Vienna, IIP; PASCAL LOTTAZ, Waseda Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS) --- Moderation: STEPHANIE FENKART, Director of the IIP

Neutralität zwischen Vergangenheit und Zukunft
(In German: Panel discussion at the International Institute for Peace, November 27, 2020)
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Speakers:
STEPHANIE FENKART, Direktorin des IIP; HANNES SWOBODA, Präsident, International Institute for Peace, ehem. MEP; HEINZ GÄRTNER, Universitätsprofessor in Wien und Krems; Vorsitzender des Beirates es International Institute for Peace (IIP); PASCAL LOTTAZ, Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study

Negotiating our Economic Future: Trade, Technology and Diplomacy
(An Interview with Geoffrey Allen Pigman, October 21, 2020)

In this video I'm interviewing G.A. Pigman about his new book, in which he analyses the nexus between technological developments (of the last twenty years) and modern diplomacy. We focus especially on his seven policy proposals to improve international relations and secure a save and prosperous future through multilateral negotiations.

Neutrality and Nonalignment: An Interview with Pascal Lottaz
(Interview, 2020, March 2)

Filmed at the "Friends with Enemies: Neutrality and Nonalignment Then and Now" conference on March 2-3, 2020, the IIP asks about historical aspects of neutrality that have been lost, the potential for tools of neutrality, and the potential for neutrality in the future.

Early Swiss Trade Diplomacy in East Asia
(Talk at the Swiss Chamber of Commerce in Japan)
2020, May 12

Switzerland has always been a nation of merchants. The history of the country’s relationship with East Asia is a perfect testimony to that. In this talk, Dr. Pascal Lottaz, Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, presents some of his research on the process through which Switzerland came to build consulates in Yokohama, Manila, and Batavia (Jakarta). Businesspeople from Neuchâtel, Zürich, and St. Gallen were pivotal in that story. Not only did they drive Switzerland’s diplomacy forward, they also build business successes that have been with us until today. 

The Neutrals: Friends with Japan and her Enemies During WWII
(Presentation at Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies at TUJ)
2019, July 11

Due to the unimaginable scale of violence of World War II, we often forget the war constituted not only of Allied and Axis Powers but also of countries that refrained from joining either side. This is especially true for the Pacific Theater, for which only little has been written about the neutrals. This talk will focus on some of the nations that remained neutral during the Empire’s violent years from 1931 to 1945. It will cover Sweden and Switzerland but it will also venture to the less well known neutrals of the war, like the Holy See, Spain, Portugal and even the USA and the USSR. Neutrality, in fact, reveals some of the hidden aspects of WWII.
 

Lectures

Introduction to International Relations

Neutrality in International Relations

Contemporary European Politics

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Neutrality Studies: Neutrality, Neutralism, and Nonalignment in International Relations

info@neutralitystudies.com
With thanks for academic support:
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© 2022 Pascal Lottaz
  • Books
    • Notions of Neutralities
    • Permanent Neutrality
    • Engaged Neutrality
    • The European Neutrals and NATO
    • Sweden, Japan and WWII
  • Events
    • Conferences
    • Workshops
  • Members
    • Pascal Lottaz
    • Herbert R. Reginbogin
    • Heinz Gärtner
    • Johanna Rainio-Niemi
    • Vasileios Syros
    • Andrew Cottey
    • Eric Golson
    • Hillary Briffa
  • Info
    • Blog