Marco Zappa is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at Ca’ Foscari of Venice, Italy. His research focuses on international cooperation in East and Southeast Asia and on contemporary Asia-Europe relations. He obtained a Ph.D. in cotutelle from Ca’ Foscari and Humboldt University Berlin in 2017. Using Japan as his main case-study and field of inquiry, his work centers on the study of programs of intellectual cooperation and cultural diplomacy and how they affect donor countries’ reputation and inform recipient countries’ choices in several policy areas including security, urban planning, and responses to climate change. Currently, he is engaged in analyzing the process of diffusion and circulation of the smart city concept and policy idea through state-to-state interactions and international cooperation. He has published several articles and volume chapters on the aforementioned topics, on top of having authored one book in Italian on Japan’s international relations. Before moving to academia, he has briefly worked in the automotive sector and, more extensively, as a free-lance journalist and translator. He collaborates regularly with Italy’s major international politics think tanks writing reports and analysis on contemporary Japan and often features on generalist newspapers, magazines and podcasts as both a contributor and expert.
