This volume is the result of a conference held by the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in November, 2011. Organized in the aftermath of the crisis presented by the triple disaster that struck the Tohoku region of Japan on March 11 of the previous year: an earthquake, a tsunami, and a nuclear meltdown. The conference had as its overarching theme 'Japan in Crisis: What Will It Take for Japan to Rise Again?' Authors began by addressing the question of what it would take for Japan to 'recover' from not only from 3/11 but also more than 20 years of nearly unilateral economic stagnation, political fumbling, and deterioration in the country's regional and global influence.
The Asan Institute for Policy Studies is an independent think tank located in Seoul, South Korea, that provides innovative policy solutions and spearheads public discourse on many of the core issues that Korea, East Asia, and the global community face. The goal of the institute is not only to offer policy solutions but also to train experts in public diplomacy and related fields in order to strengthen Korea's capacity to better tackle some of the most pressing problems affecting the country, the region and the world today.
Bong Youngshik is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Center for Foreign Policy at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies. Before joining the Asan Institute, Dr. Bong was an assistant professor at American University's School of International Service in Washington D.C. from 2007-10. Dr. Bong was also a Freeman post-doctoral fellow at Wellesley College and Assistant Professor of Korean Studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. His research is focused on the interplay between nationalism and globalization on security issues including Dokdo and other island disputes in Asia, anti-Americanism and the U.S.-Korea Alliance. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. from Yonsei University.
T.J. Pempel is the Jack M. Forcey Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He served as Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies from 2002-06. His research focuses on comparative politics, Japanese political economy, and Asian regional issues. His most recent books include Remapping East Asia: The Construction of a Region, Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific, and Security Cooperation in Northeast Asia. He received his B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
William W. Grimes has taught in the IR Department at Boston University since 1996. Before becoming department chair in 2010, he helped to found BU Center for the Study of Asia and served as its first director from 2008-10. Previously, he spent time as a post-doctoral researcher and as a visiting assistant professor at Harvard University. Tetsundo Iwakuni - prominent Japanese politician who, until 2009, represented Democratic Party of Japan, as a member of the House of Representatives in the Diet (national legislature). HA native of Osaka and graduate of the University of Tokyo, he was elected to be the mayor of Izumo, Shimane in 1989. After running unsuccessfully for the governorship of Tokyo in 1995, he was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in 1996. He served as the Director-General of the International Department of the Democratic Party of Japan until 2009, when he decided to step down from politics. He has also served as vice president of the DPJ. Iwakuni now serves as Senior Adviser to GR Japan, a government relations consultancy, and teaches at several universities in Japan, Korea, and the U.S. Iwakuni made it to the news in June 2010 when his appointment as senior adviser to Liberal Democratic Party was announced Jun Saito - Assistant Professor at Yale University, USA Kim Mikyoung - Ph.D. in Sociology, University of Georgia, USA MA in Women's Studies, University of Georgia, USA (Graduate Certificate) MA in Sociology, University of Georgia, USA MA in Political Science, Graduate Institute for Peace Studies, Kyunghee University, Seoul, Korea BA in English Literature, Pusan National University, Pusan, Korea Kazuhiko Togo, Lecturer and Research fellow, East Asian Studies, Princeton University, USA Kim Sok Chul Michael Auslin, AEI's director of Japan Studies
