Monday, December 3rd, 2018 Kent E. Calder on His Book "Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan"

Description

JAPAN GREW EXPLOSIVELY AND CONSISTENTLY FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY, from the Meiji Restoration until the collapse of the economic bubble in the early 1990s. Since then, it has been unable to restart its economic engine and respond to globalization. How could the same political–economic system produce such strongly contrasting outcomes?  In this talk, Kent E. Calder discussed his  book Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan (Stanford University Press, 2017), which identifies the crucial variables as classic Japanese forms of socio-political organization: the "circles of compensation." These cooperative groupings of economic, political, and bureaucratic interests dictate corporate and individual responses to such critical issues as investment and innovation; at the micro level, they explain why individuals can be decidedly cautious on their own, yet prone to risk-taking as a collective. Calder examined how these circles operate in seven concrete areas, from food supply to consumer electronics, and deals in special detail with the influence of Japan’s changing financial system. The result is a comprehensive overview of Japan’s circles of compensation as they stand today, and a road map for broadening them in the future.  

Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan (Stanford University Press, 2017) will be available for purchase at the event.  

About the Author KENT E. CALDER Director, Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies  Dr. Kent E. Calder is Director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies in Washington, DC. He also currently serves as Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs and International Research Cooperation at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in the fall of 2014. Before arriving at Johns Hopkins SAIS in 2003, he taught for twenty years at Princeton University, and previous acted as a Visiting Professor at Seoul National University and Lecturer in Government at Harvard University. Dr. Calder has also served as Special Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to Japan (1997-2001), Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1989-1993 and 1996), and as the first Executive Director of Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations (1979-1980). He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1979, where he worked under the direction of Ambassador Edwin O. Reischauer.  A specialist in the political economy of East Asia, Dr. Calder has spent eleven years living and researching in Japan, and four years elsewhere in the region. Some of his major publications include:  Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan (Stanford University Press, 2017) Singapore: Smart City, Smart State (Brookings Institution Press, 2016) Asia in Washington: Exploring the Penumbra of Transnational Power (Brookings Institution Press, 2014) The New Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First Century Eurasian Geopolitics (Yale University Press, 2012) Pacific Alliance: Reviving U.S.-Japan Relations (Yale University Press, 2009) Embattled Garrisons: Comparative Base Politics and American Globalism (Princeton University, 2007) Pacific Defense: Arms, Energy, and America’s Future in Asia (William Morrow and Company, 1996) Strategic Capitalism: Private Business and Public Purpose in Japanese Industrial Finance (Princeton University Press, 1993) Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability in Japan (Princeton University Press, 1988)