The social science dissertation workshop sponsored by ISS at Todai has its next monthly meeting on January 27.* Presenting will be Yongwook Ryu, who is almost finished with his dissertation at the Department of Government at Harvard. It compares "Identity Politics and Regional Conflict in Northeast and Southeast Asia," and for us, he will concentrate on how the China-Japan relationship has deteriorated since 1990.

Specifically, Yongwook has come up with a "new concept called identity distance, which measures socio-psychological differences between groups." He hypothesizes that "widening (narrowing) identity distance increases (decreases) the likelihood of conflict." His data include "unique survey data of the political elite in Japan as well as the content analysis of newspapers in both countries." The "history problem" is a big explanation of the deterioration. Yongwook's theoretical basis is in sociology and social psychology but I'm sure his approach will interest political scientists and indeed all of us.

If you plan to come I'd appreciate hearing from you though it isn't required.

John Campbell, jccamp@umich.edu

*Meetings start at noon; the Institute of Social Science provides coffee and tea and you are welcome to bring lunch. The location is a seminar room on the 5th floor in the Akamon General Research (Sougou Kenkyuu)
Building. It is to the right after you come through
Akamon. For a map, go to:

http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/campusmap/cam01_08_02_e.html