After taking June off the ISS social science dissertation workshop convenes next Thursday at noon, on July 19.* Alexandru Luta will present; he is a Romanian political scientist and energy specialist who has studied and worked in the U.S. and Scandinavia; currently he is completing a PhD dissertation at Tokyo Institute of Technology. His research looks at the politics of alternative energy in Japan and comparatively. Many countries initiated alternative energy programs from the 1990s, and in most cases they revised them after various shocks (e.g. the Kyoto protocol, spikes in energy prices, the financial crisis, Fukushima). Some countries responded to the shocks just with marginal adjustments to their existing policy instruments (e.g. changing tariff levels), as is predicted by institutions-based theories of policy change. Other nations replaced the instruments themselves. One hypothesis looks to significant upheavals in the relationships among advocacy coalitions as the reason.

Japan had started with a fairly modest portfolio in
2002 but recently it has replaced the original policy instruments with new ones. Alex is tracing shifts in advocacy coalitions in Japan, and in particular to gauge the extent to which the supporters of the earlier instruments were able to shape development of the new ones. He will compare such political processes with those in other nations where instruments were replaced.

The core membership of the workshop is graduate students and recent PhDs (of any nationality and social science discipline), but guests of all ages and backgrounds are always welcome. I would appreciate hearing if you are coming if possible.

John Campbell

*Meetings of the Shaken Social Science Dissertation Workshop start at 12 pm and go to 1:30 and sometimes beyond. 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. The building is down a little passage to the right after you come through Akamon. It is Bldg 37 on this map:

http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/about/documents/Hongo_CampusMap_E.pdf

__________________________
>From John Creighton Campbell
Professor Emeritus of Political Science
University of Michigan
Visiting Scholar, Institute of Gerontology Tokyo University jccamp at umich.edu