Monmouth College visiting professor of Sociology and Anthropology Caitlin Meagher will present the second of six “Great Decisions” foreign affairs discussions at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 16.
Meagher’s presentation on the four-country “Quad Alliance” comprising the U.S., Japan, Australia and India, will focus on the attention to China’s expanded influence in the Pacific realm, and how each of the four countries might react to that influence:
“(This alignment of nations) has been compared to a sort-of Pacific NATO,” Meagher said. “As of right now it is a loose alliance. But there is some confusion over what this (alliance) really is. The extent, for example, of mutual security.
“(The alliance) was originally proposed during the Shinzo Abe administration in the 2000s, but then it fell out of favor. Two years or so the gang got back together, each for a different reason.”
Great Decisions is America’s largest discussion program on world affairs, sponsored by the non-partisan Foreign Policy Association (FPA).
Meagher earned a bachelor’s degree in politics at New York University before attending the University of Oxford, where she earned a master’s degree at the Nissan Institute for Modern Japan Studies and a master of philosophy and a doctorate at the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology.
Prior to coming to Monmouth, Meagher was a visiting assistant professor of anthropology at Skidmore College in New York.
Meagher’s 30-minute presentation will be followed by 45 minutes of audience discussion in Mellinger Commons, at the college’s Center for Science and Business.
