Constitutional revision research project

SCHEDULE/spring 2008

The Constitutional Revision Research Project hosts two to four public meetings each year to hear and respond to a speaker’s lecture, to discuss topics related to the project, or to provide updates on specific issues. This section of the website contains the minutes of meetings held since 2005 as well as a paper by Aichi Kazuo of the Japanese House of Representatives during his March 2006 visit to Harvard.

PAST EVENTS:

  • April 28 (Mon.), 4:00-6:00

    • Porté Seminar Room S250, CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St.
    "Postwar Japanese Diplomacy and Constitutional Revision: The Case for Middle-Power Strategy"
    YOSHIHIDE SOEYA, Professor of Political Science, Faculty of Law,
    Keio University

    Suggested Readings:
    (1) "Revision of Article 9 Should Assume New Security Treaty with U.S." (Oct. 30, 2007)
    http://www.jiia.or.jp/en_commentary/200710/30-1.html
    (2) "Japan's diplomacy with neighboring countries: Correct the distortion brought on by conservative politics" (Oct. 16, 2007)
    http://www.asahi.com/english/asianet/hatsu/eng_hatsu071016.html
    (3) "The SDF Dispatch to Iraq as a Diplomatic Issue" RIETI Report, No.034 (Jan. 16, 2004)
    http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/rieti_report/034.html
    (4) 「安全保障『国家』安全保障『国家』から『国際』へ」 Asahi Shimbun ( Sept. 14, 2003)
    http://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/papers/contribution/soeya/05.html
    (5) "Diplomacy Should Go Beyond Alliance With U.S." International Herald Tribune / Asahi Shimbun ( July 3, 2003)
    http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/papers/contribution/soeya/03.html
    (6) "New Role as a 'Middle Power'" Asahi Shimbun Asia Network, Annual Reports: 2001 Report "Comprehensive Research on Stability and Progress in Northeast Asia"
    http://www.asahi.com/english/asianet/report/eng_2001_02.html

    YOSHIHIDE SOEYA is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the Faculty of Law of Keio University. He is also the Director of the Keio Institute of East Asian Studies. His areas of interest are politics and security in East Asia, and Japanese diplomacy and its external relations in the region and the world. He received Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1987, majoring in world politics. Dr. Soeya serves on the boards of directors of the Japan Association of International Studies, and the Research Institute for Peace and Security (RIPS) in Tokyo. He is also a member of the Japanese government’s Council on Defense Facilities (MOD), the Council on Industrial Structure (METI), the Advisory Group of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International Council of the Asia Society in New York. He was also a faculty fellow of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (2000-2004). His most recent book (in Japanese) titled Japan’s Middle-Power Diplomacy (Tokyo: Chikuma-shobo, 2005) has attracted a wide range of attention both in and outside of Japan, whose Korean translation was published in 2006 and English translation is in progress. His recent publications in English include "The Misconstrued Shift in Japan's Foreign Policy," Japan Echo, Vol. 33, No. 3 (June 2006); "Changing Security and Political Contexts of Japan-Taiwan Relations: A View from Japan," NBR Analysis, Vol. 16, No. 1 (October 2005); "Japan’s Relations with China," in Ezra F. Vogel, Yuan Ming, and Tanaka Akihiko, eds., The Golden Age of the U.S.-China-Japan Triangle (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002); "The China Factor in the U.S.-Japan Alliance: The Myth of a China Threat," Journal of East Asian Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (August 2002); "Taiwan in Japan's Security Considerations," China Quarterly, No. 165 (March 2001); and Japan's Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945-1978 (London: Oxford University Press, 1998).

     

  • FEBRUARY 28 (Thurs.), 4:00-6:00

    • Seminar Room S050, CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge St.
    "Legal and Constitutional Issues of Japan's Security Policy"
    AKIHIKO TANAKA    , Professor of International Politics, Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo

    Suggested Readings:
    (1) 「第２項の削除 まず必要」 Yomiuri, April 27, 2007 (PDF file)
    (2)「新しい安保論議の幕開け」 Mainichi Shimbun, May 18, 2003
    http://nippon.zaidan.info/seikabutsu/2002/01252/contents/509.htm
    (3)「改憲し実質的な安保論議を」 Asahi Shimbun, May 2, 2000
    http://nippon.zaidan.info/seikabutsu/2002/01252/contents/507.htm
    (4) "The Domestic Context of the Alliances: The Politics of Tokyo" (January 2000) http://iis-db.stanford.edu/pubs/11376/Tanaka.pdf

    • Akihiko Tanaka is Professor of International Politics at the Institute of Oriental Culture at the University of Tokyo. He obtained his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Tokyo's College of Arts and Sciences in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981. After returning to Japan, he became a researcher at the Research Institute for Peace and Security. In 1983 he became Research Associate at the University of Tokyo and was named Associate Professor in 1984. He was also Visiting Professor at Ruhr University, Germany in 1986. In 1990 he became affiliated with the Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo as Associate Professor and assumed his current position in 1998. He was a Senior Associate Member at St Antony's College, Oxford, from 1994 to 1995. He has served as a special member of several government advisory councils.

    Professor Tanaka's research focus on theories of international politics, contemporary international relations in East Asia, and issues in Japan-U.S. relations. His publications include: Word Politics: Japanese Diplomacy under Globalization (Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo, 2000, 312 pp.); National Security (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbun, 1997, 382 pp.); The New Middle Ages (Tokyo: Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 1996, 307pp.); Wars and the International System (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1992, v + 326 pp.) co-edited with Yoshinobu Yamamoto; and Sino-Japanese Relations 1945-1990 (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1991 v + 234 + 7 pp.).


    For more information contact kenpo@fas.harvard.edu.