Base Towns

In Base Towns, Claudia Junghyun Kim addresses how local populations respond to the U.S. military bases they host by investigating the contentious politics surrounding twenty U.S. bases across Korea and Japan. Drawing on fieldwork interviews, participant observation, and protest event data from 2000-2015, Kim shows that activists in base towns successfully build broad-based anti-base movements when they take advantage of quotidian disruption, adopt culturally resonant movement frames, and ally with local political elites. In examining activist actions, strategies, and dilemmas, this book sheds light on marginalized actors in domestic and international politics who sometimes manage to complicate the operations of America's military behemoth.