Description

This is an-inperson event at the Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Seminar Room 208, North House, Toronto, Ontario.

What are the long-term socioeconomic consequences of wartime destruction? In this research project, Daniel M. Smith and colleagues use historical aerial photographs taken after the firebombing of Tokyo in World War II to measure micro-variation in neighborhood-level damages, and then investigate the relationship between the amount of damages sustained and the present-day strength of neighborhood associations, a key indicator of geographically-rooted social capital. Even after decades of population recovery, economic growth, and transformations of the urban space, the most heavily damaged neighborhoods continue to have less-organized neighborhood associations, and also exhibit lower socioeconomic well-being in terms of education, occupation, and residential stability. These findings are consistent with the idea that the social capital of survivors is a crucial ingredient for postwar recovery: when fewer survivors remain, communities can potentially be set on a path of persistent disadvantage.  

Speaker Bio:

Daniel M. Smith is the Gerald L. Curtis Visiting Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy in the Department of Political Science and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.  His interests cover a range of topics in Japanese politics, comparative politics, political economy, and political behavior. A core substantive focus of his research and teaching is political representation in democracies, especially how institutions such as electoral systems affect voting behavior and the demographic backgrounds and behavior of political elites.  He is the author of Dynasties and Democracy (Stanford University Press, 2018) and articles appearing in journals such as the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis. He is also a co-editor of the Japan Decides election series.  Prior to coming to Columbia University, he was assistant and then associate professor in the Department of Government at Harvard University. He received his MA (2009) and PhD (2012) in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and his BA (2005) in political science and Italian from the University of California, Los Angeles. From 2012 to 2013, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University.

Description

This is an-person event in Seminar Room 108N, North House, Munk School, 1 Devonshire Place, Toronto, Ontario.

Intelligence communities are everywhere and always in motion. Japan’s has been no exception, often shifting in response to dramatic analytical and organizational failures, changes in the regional and global balance, and sudden technological developments. In the first half of the 20th century, Japan had a full spectrum intelligence apparatus. This came apart with defeat in WWII and subordination to the United States.  After the Cold War, shifts in the security environment and major intelligence failures stimulated rethinking by Tokyo. Following a period of half-hearted and incomplete reforms, the Japanese government began to enhance its collection and analysis capabilities, and to tackle in earnest the dysfunctional stovepipes and leak-prone practices hampering its intelligence system. Where do matters stand today? In this program, Richard J. Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International Studies at MIT, discusses the evolution of Japan’s intelligence community and its future.   

Speaker Bio:

Richard J Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been head of the MIT Political Science Department, Vice-Chair of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council, and chair of the Japan-US Friendship Commission. He has also been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and was awarded an Imperial decoration, the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister. His study of the political and policy consequences of the 2011 Tohoku catastrophe, 3:11: Disaster and Change in Japan, was published by Cornell University Press in 2013. Samuels’ Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book in international affairs in 2007. Machiavelli’s Children won the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the Jervis-Schroeder Prize from the International History and Politics section of American Political Science Association. Earlier books were awarded prizes from the Association for Asian Studies, the Association of American University Press, and the Ohira Memorial Foundation. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Political Science Quarterly, International Organization, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The National Interest, Journal of Japanese Studies, and Daedalus. From 2014-2019, he was Einstein Visiting Fellow at the Free University of Berlin, and his latest book, Special Duty: A History of the Japanese Intelligence Community, was named one of the “Best of Books 2019” by the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal, Foreign Affairs.

Description

The idea that China’s system of governance, which has achieved rapid economic growth through a one-party system, has an impact on other countries is gaining popularity. In this talk we call this hypothetical mechanism the China Effect. We examine whether the China Effect can be observed in the context of the global progress of digitalisation in the 2010s. To empirically tackle this issue, we focus on the policy transfer of digital protectionism via China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). A possible pathway for China’s protectionist practices to spread to relevant countries is through the various channels of the initiative as well as bilateral agreements including memorandums of understanding. After briefly reviewing domestic digital protectionism in China, we conduct an event studies estimation. Results suggest that the countries involved in the initiative have strengthened their regulation of digital services, however, the effect of treatment is largely heterogeneous. To further examine underlying mechanisms, we also conduct case studies. Our findings suggest that discussion around the China Effect needs to focus more on the heterogeneous impacts and two-way influences of the countries involved. As the results suggest some emerging countries have stronger incentives to absorb the Chinese model, the findings have important implications for the foreign policymaking of countries like Canada, Japan, and the United States.

Asei ITO is an Associate Professor at the Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo. He obtained PhD in Economics from Graduate school of Economics, University of Keio, Japan. His research covers Chinese industrial development, outward FDI activities, and innovation. He is one of editors of China’s Outward Investment Data (Institute of Social Science, the University of Tokyo, 2014) and The Asian Economy: Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Routledge, 2020). Also, he is a recipient of academic prizes including Yomiuri-Yoshino Sakuzo Prize and Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. Currently he stays at Harvard Yenching-Institute as visiting scholar (2022-2023).