Stanford University

International Relations

FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.

Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.

FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.

Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.

Stanford Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

-

Stanford Conference on "The Political Economy of Japan under the Abe Government"

February 8 - February 9, 2018

Philippines Conference Room

Sponsored by: Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (Stanford University), and Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (Stanford University)

Organizers: Takeo Hoshi and Phillip Lipscy

 

 

Program

2/8/2018

8:30am     Breakfast
 

9:15am     Welcome remarks
                 Gi-Wook Shin (Stanford University)
                Toru Tamiya (Japan Society for Promotion of Science)
 

9:30am  "Transformation of the Japanese Political System: Expansion of the Power of the Japanese Prime Minister", Harukata Takenaka (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)

Discussant:
Saori Katada (University of Southern California)
 

10:30am  Break
 

10:50am  "Constitutional Revision Under the Abe Administration", Kenneth McElwain (University of Tokyo)

Discussant:
Yu Jin Woo (Stanford University)

 

11:50am  Lunch
 

1:00pm    "Do election results reflect voters' policy preferences? Evidence from the 2017 Japanese general election", Yusaku Horiuchi (Dartmouth College), Shiro Kuriwaki (Ph.D, Harvard University), Daniel Smith (Harvard University)

Discussant:
Rob Weiner (Naval Postgraduate School)

 

2:00pm   "Japan's Security Policy in 'the Abe Era': Radical Transformation or Evolutionary Shift?", Adam Liff (Indiana University)

Discussant:
Ashten Seung Cho (Stanford University)

 

3:00pm  Break
 

3:20pm   "Abenergynomics: The Politics of Energy and Climate Change under Abe", Trevor Incerti (Yale University) and Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)

Discussant:
Kent Calder (Johns Hopkins SAIS)

 

4:20pm   "Innovation Policy", Kenji Kushida (Stanford University)

Discussant:
John Zysman (University of California, Berkeley)
 

5:20pm     Adjourn
 

6:30pm     Group Dinner

 

2/9/2018

9:00am   Breakfast
 

9:30am   "Abenomics, Monetary Policy, and Consumption", Joshua Hausman (University of Michigan), Takashi Unayama (Hitotsubashi University), and Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)

Discussant:
Huiyu Li (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)
 

10:30am  Break

10:50am "The Great Disconnect: The Decoupling of Wage and Price Inflation in Japan", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Anil Kashyap (University of Chicago)

Discussants:
Joshua Hausman (University of Michigan)
Johannes Wieland (University of California, San Diego)
 

11:50pm  Lunch
 

1:00pm  "Corporate Governance Reform", Hideaki Miyajima (Waseda University)

Discussant:
Curtis Milhaupt (Stanford University)
 

2:00pm   "Womenomics", Nobuko Nagase (Ochanomizu University)

Discussant:
Steve Vogel (University of California, Berkeley)
 

3:00pm  Break
 

3:20pm  "Japanese Agricultural Reform Under Abe Shinzo: Two Steps Forward, A Half-Step Back?", Patricia Maclachlan (University of Texas at Austin) and Kay Shimizu (University of Pittsburgh)

Discussant:
Takatoshi Ito (Columbia University and National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies)
 

4:20pm   "Yen Depreciation and Competitiveness of Japanese Firms", Kyoji Fukao (Hitotsubashi University) and Shuichiro Nishioka (West Virginia University)

Discussant:
Katheryn Russ (University of California, Davis)
 

5:20pm  "Next Step", Takeo Hoshi (Stanford University) and Phillip Lipscy (Stanford University)
 

5:50pm  Adjourn

Conferences

ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What Should Be Done?

Paragraphs

In October 2017, twenty-two scholars from eight countries attended a workshop titled “ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What should be done?” The workshop was designed to facilitate a frank and creative discussion of policy recommendations, with the intention of providing the resulting proposals to ASEAN member states and other regional powers. Following two days of discussion and debate, the attendees produced a series of specific policy recommendations (SPRs).

 

Four sets of Southeast Asia-related topics were covered during the workshop: regional security, regional infrastructure, regional economy, and improving ASEAN. The attending scholars—which included Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative Karl Eikenberry and Director of the Southeast Asia Program Donald Emmerson—submitted 24 SPRs for discussion.

 

Over two-and-a-half days, the group evaluated each SPR for its effectiveness, significance, specificity, and feasibility. The intention was to produce specific proposals addressing some of the main challenges facing Southeast Asia. So as to encourage openness in the dialogue, the workshop was held under the Chatham House Rule.

 

The Southeast Asia Program and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center prepared this program and final publication in cooperation with multiple partners. Their final recommendations have been included in the 20-page report which is now available online.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Policy Briefs
Publication Date
Authors
Donald K. Emmerson

Migration Policymaking in Japan: Does Citizenship Law Matter?

-

Japan is commonly regarded as a country that is closed against migrants. It does not allow their entries in a large size, granting restricted rights. As an attempt to understand this tendency, this research claims that Japan’s citizenship law, jus sanguinis (by ancestry) principle, sets a fundamental frame for its migration policymaking. To test this claim, it examines how the citizenship law influences attitudes of the general public as well as those of politicians. Specifically, Japan under a strong emphasis on blood ties is more likely to impose a restrictive migration policy, because (1) the general public tends to reveal a greater distance toward migrants (societal nature); and (2) migrant groups are excluded from electorate, and thus, politicians are less inclined to impose generous policies for them (electoral nature).  In order to demonstrate these mechanisms, this research traces Japanese public attitude and political incentives, which have governed its migration policy until today.

 

rsd17 080 0067a
Yu Jin Woo is a Japan Program Research Scholar at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). Woo’s research interests are in the fields of international and comparative political economy, particularly migration policies and citizenship laws.  Woo holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Virginia. She received her first master’s degree in international cooperation at Seoul National University and her second master’s degree in political economy at New York University. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts in East Asian Studies at Smith College.

 

Research Scholar, Shorenstein APARC, Stanford University
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Circles of Compensation: Economic Growth and the Globalization of Japan

-

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?

This book 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. Kent E. Calder examines 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.

 

cid ii 14c4f3071f2412c6
Kent Calder is currently Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS/Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. Before arriving at SAIS in 2003, he taught for twenty years at Princeton University, and has also been Distinguished Visiting Professor at Seoul National University, Visiting Professor at Yangon University, and Lecturer on Government at Harvard University. Calder, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations since 1990, 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). Calder received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1979, where he worked under the director of Edwin O. Reischauer. He is the author of ten books on East Asian political economy, energy geopolitics, Japanese politics, and US-Japan relations, including most recently Singapore: Smart City, Smart State (Brookings, 2016) Asia in Washington (Brookings, 2014), The New Continentalism (Yale, 2012); Ten of these books have been translated into Japanese. Calder was recently awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for his contribution to Japan-US relations, and to the academic study of Japan.

 

Kent Calder Director, Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies; and Director of Japan Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)
Seminars
Japan Colloquium Series

Navigating the challenges of alliance management in Korea

News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

In advance of talks between North Korea and South Korea, APARC’s Daniel Sneider says the most immediate threat on the peninsula actually comes from the latter.

In a piece for The Hill, Sneider writes that by embracing North Korea’s offer for dialogue, South Korean President Moon Jae-in—who seeks a peaceful Olympic Games, good relations with China, and reduced tensions with the North—risks diminishing America’s presence in the region.

The challenge for the U.S. administration, accordng to Sneider, is to afford South Korea freedom to explore opportunities for dialogue, while ensuring that such freedom does not result in driving the United States off the peninsula.

The full article is available at The Hill

 

Hero Image
Joint Security Area; Panmunjom, DPRK (North Korea) Flickr/John Pavelka
All News button
1

Ending Civil Wars: Constraints & Possibilities

Paragraphs

Part of an eighteen-month Academy project on Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses, the essays in the Winter 2018 issue of Dædalus consider the impediments to ending civil wars and offer policy recommendations for states involved in conflict and for the international community. The companion Fall 2017 issue of Dædalus describes the causative factors of civil wars in the modern era, examines the security risks posed by intrastate violence, and explores the challenges confronting external actors.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Authors

Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations

-

Abstract: Rising powers often seek to reshape the world order, triggering confrontations with those who seek to defend the status quo. In recent years, as international institutions have grown in prevalence and influence, they have increasingly become central arenas for international contestation. In this seminar, Phillip Lipscy will describe the main findings from his book, which examines how international institutions evolve as countries seek to renegotiate the international order. He offers a new theory of institutional change and explains why some institutions change flexibly while others successfully resist or fall to the wayside. The book uses a wealth of empirical evidence - quantitative and qualitative - to evaluate the theory from international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Union, League of Nations, United Nations, the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, and Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The book will be of particular interest to scholars interested in the historical and contemporary diplomacy of the United States, Japan, and China.

Speaker bio: Phillip Y. Lipscy is the Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His fields of research include international and comparative political economy, international security, and the politics of East Asia, particularly Japan.

Lipscy’s book from Cambridge University Press, Renegotiating the World Order: Institutional Change in International Relations, examines how countries seek greater international influence by reforming or creating international organizations. His research addresses a wide range of substantive topics such as international cooperation, the politics of energy, the politics of financial crises, the use of secrecy in international policy making, and the effect of domestic politics on trade. He has also published extensively on Japanese politics and foreign policy.

Lipscy obtained his PhD in political science at Harvard University. He received his MA in international policy studies and BA in economics and political science at Stanford University. Lipscy has been affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo, the Institute for Global and International Studies at George Washington University, the RAND Corporation, and the Institute for International Policy Studies.

For additional information such as C.V., publications, and working papers, please visit Phillip Lipscy's homepage.

Phillip Lipscy Thomas Rohlen Fellow Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Seminars

JSPS Fellowships for Research in Japan: Information Session for Stanford University Scholars

-

JSPS Fellowships for Research in Japan: Information Session for Stanford University Scholars

The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science offers fully funded fellowships to scholars with excellent records of research achievement for the purpose of conducting collaborative research, discussions, and opinion exchanges with counterparts in Japan. The fellowships are intended to help advance the research activities of the fellows while promoting science and internationalization in Japan. This information session is offered to Stanford Scholars interested in conducting collaborative research in Japan, in order to provide fellowship information and guidance. All fields of research are welcome.
 
Agenda
12:00pm Fellowship Programs
  • Postdoctoral Fellowships
  • Invitational Fellowships
12:20pm Alumni Experience and Q&A
12:35pm Networking
 
Applicant Eligibility
Please note that not all eligibility requirements or exceptions are noted. Eligibility by program may vary.
For further information and details regarding eligibility prior to the information, please see the JSPS application guideline or visit the JSPS website. 
 
Questions regarding eligibility can be directed to the JSPS San Francisco Office at webmaster@jspsusa-sf.org
 

  • Holds citizenship of a country that has diplomatic relations with Japan

    •  Exception:  JSPS Postdoctoral Short-term Program (hold citizenship or permanent residency of US, Canada, EU, Switzerland, Norway or Russia)

AND

  • Holds PhD by start of fellowship AND be within six years of receiving your PhD

    • Exception:  JSPS Postdoctoral Short-term Program (hold the status above OR be enrolled in a doctoral course AND be scheduled to receive a Ph.D. within 2 years)

OR

  • Holds a full-time position at a research institution equivalent to professor, associate professor, or assistant professor

    • Exception:  Short-term S Program (be a Nobel laureate or equivalent)

    • Exception:  Non-faculty researchers who are conducting research at a university or non-profit institution (case-by-case)

    • Exception: Non-faculty researchers who've held a PhD for 6 years or more and are conducting research at a university or non-profit research institution

Abe Fellows Global Forum: Confronting Climate Change

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

The Japan Program hosted the Abe Fellows Global Forum, “Confronting Climate Change: What Can the U.S. and Japan Contribute to Creating Sustainable Societies?” at Bechtel Conference Center at Stanford University on October 20, 2017. The event was co-organized with the Social Science Research Council, in collaboration with the Center for Global Partnership of the Japan Foundation, which funds the Abe Fellowship Program.

The conference opened with a remark by George P. Shultz, Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former US Secretary of State and US Secretary of Treasury followed by a keynote by Michael Armacost, Shorenstein APARC Fellow at Stanford University and former ambassador to Japan and the Philippines, who addressed questions on strategies for reducing energy consumption and possibilities for future international cooperation between Japan and the United States on climate change.

Following the keynote speech, experts from Japan and the United States engaged in a panel discussion and shared some of the lessons that have been learned from Asia’s experience.  Toshi Arimura, Professor, Faculty of Political Science and Economics, Waseda University, presented the experience of carbon pricing in the U.S. and Japan and the successful experience in both countries.  Janelle Knox-Hayes, Lister Brothers Associate Professor of Economic Geography and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pointed out the importance of the socio-political context in various countries for creating well-functioning markets for carbon emission.  Philip Lipscy, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Thomas Rohlen Center Fellow at FSI, Stanford University, discussed how the political context has been influencing Japan’s energy policies.  Dana Buntrock, Chair, Center for Japanese Studies and Professor of Architecture, UC Berkeley, presented how specific contexts in Japan and the U.s. have shaped the energy policies in two countries.

The conference was followed by a reception in the Oksenberg Conference Room.

Hero Image
dsc 5770 Dillon Saw
All News button
1
Subscribe to International Relations