The Contemporary Japan Group at the Institute of Social Science (ISS, or Shaken), University of Tokyo, welcomes you to a lecture by Daniel P. Aldrich, Associate Professor of Political Science, Purdue University, on

New Data on the Black Wave: The role of Village-Level Factors in Mortality

Thursday, April 25, 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Akamon Sōgō Kenkyūtō Room 549, Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo Campus, University of Tokyo.

ABSTRACT
The consequences of the 3/11 compounded disaster were not distributed equally across the coastal towns, villages, and cities of the Tohoku region of Japan. Instead, the mortality rate due to the tsunami varied tremendously from zero to ten percent of the local residential population. What accounts for this variation remains a critical question for researchers to answer. This paper uses a new data set of roughly 300 villages along five coastal prefectures to untangle the factors connected to mortality during the disaster. With data on demographic, geophysical, infrastructure, social capital, political, and economic conditions, we find strong effects of tsunami characteristics, social capital measures, and demographic conditions.
These findings have important policy implications for future disasters in Japan and abroad.

SPEAKER
Daniel P. Aldrich is an associate professor of political science at Purdue University who is on leave as a Fulbright research fellow at the University of Tokyo’s Economics Department for the academic year
2012-2013 and who was an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow at USAID during the 2011-2012 academic year. He is the author of two books (Site Fights and Building Resilience), 25 peer reviewed articles, and more than 60 reviews, OpEds, and articles for the general public. He is a board member of the journals Asian Politics and Policy and Risk Hazards and Crisis in Public Policy and a Mansfield U.S. Japan Network for the Future Alumnus.
He is the section
organizer for the American Political Science Association’s Disasters and Crises Related Group..

Contemporary Japan Group:
The ISS Contemporary Japan Group provides English-speaking residents of the Tokyo area with an opportunity to hear cutting-edge research in social science and related policy issues, as well as a venue for researchers and professionals in or visiting Tokyo to present and receive knowledgeable feedback on their latest research projects. Admission is free and advance registration is not required. Everyone is welcome.

For more information, please visit our website:
http://web.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cjg/
or contact
Gregory W. NOBLE (noble[at]iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp)