Oleg Pakhomov is an associate professor in the Arctic Studies Center at Liaocheng University, China. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University's Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies in social anthropology where he won a Japanese Government Monbukagakusho: MEXT Scholarship. He began his career as a public servant in the International Department of Primorsky Territory Government of the Russian Federation, where he implemented programs of regional development and cooperation with governments as well as foreign investors from the Asia-Pacific region. He was then the chairperson of the Department of History and Archaeology at Far Eastern Federal University, where he developed new legal and educational frameworks to strengthen scientific and educational cooperation with universities in China, South Korea, and Japan. He later served as an international relations advisor to the President of Kazan Federal University in Russia, establishing cooperation with universities in the East Asian region. In this role, he successfully implemented a number of joint scientific and educational projects with universities in China, South Korea, and Japan in different subject areas, including chemistry, physics, engineering and in social science disciplines. His research interests include comparative politics with a focus on the East Asian region—China, North/South Korea, Japan, and Russia. He is currently working on a project that develops the ideas of Karl Wittfogel on the tradition of total power during the contemporary period in relation to the political culture of East Asia.