Amidst all this heat and humidity, Kay Shimizu will be presenting at the next Shaken workshop at noon next Thursday, the 26th.* Kay has a PhD from Stanford and is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Columbia. Before she started teaching she presented at the first meeting of this workshop, in December 2006.

Kay's talk will focus on the decentralization of politics and its implications for central-local relations. Decentralization and the weakening of central government control began nearly two decades ago. Since then, local politics has become more salient and influential both locally and on the national stage. Key to understanding this rise of local politics is the presidential nature of gubernatorial and mayoral elections. Unlike national-level politics, governors and mayors are directly elected; once elected, they have greater direct control over their budgets, allowing them to implement campaign promises.

Still, these institutional features of local politics existed long before the current rise in local politics.
What changed, rather, is the central government's power, which has been eroding due to Japan's economic and fiscal decline. This long-term trend has left room and incentives for local politicians to be more innovative and responsive at home, and more vociferous on the national stage. Kay will present some new evidence on the increasing competitiveness of local
elections and responsiveness to voter concerns.

Guests are welcome at the workshop. Please let me know if you are coming, if convenient. The following session, on September 27, will be about security policy with Simon Schwenke.

jc

*Meetings of the Shaken Social Science Dissertation Workshop start at 12 pm on Thursdays 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, or you can go through the grounds of Ito Hall off Hongou Douri. It is Bldg 38 on this map:

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