Asia in Washington

―Socio-political transformation in America's capital city and implications for Japan―

November 4, 2014 6:30 PM (finished)


Kent Calder

(Professor of Japan Studies, SAIS/Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.)

Date/Time November 4, 2014 6:30 PM
Location Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo　 [map]
Abstract How has the socio-political context of policymaking in Washington, D.C. changed since the end of the Cold War, as Washington has emerged as a "global political city" with research and agenda-setting functions far transcending US government decision-making? How have Asian countries—particularly the Northeast Asian powerhouses Japan, China, and Korea— established, increased, and leveraged their Washington influence in this new environment? And what impact will these countries have on the decisions made in the halls of power in Washington?
Bio Kent Calder is 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 also as Visiting Professor at Seoul National University, and as Lecturer on Government at Harvard University. Calder has 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, during 1979-1980. Calder received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1979, where he worked under the direction of Edwin O. Reischauer. His most recent work is Asia in Washington: Exploring the Penumbra of Transnational Power (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). He has also recently authored The New Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First Century Eurasian Geopolitics (Yale, 2012) and Embattled Garrisons: Comparative Base Politics and American Globalism (Princeton, 2007), Among Calder’s major works on Japanese politics and public policy are Crisis and Compensation (Princeton, 1988); and Strategic Capitalism (Princeton, 1993). He has also written extensively on Asian energy geopolitics and U.S.-Japan relations, including Pacific Alliance (Yale, 2009); and Pacific Defense (William Morrow, 1996).