Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien nav lang search
日本語EnglishDeutsch
Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien

German Institute for Japanese Studies

Research focused on modern Japan, in global and regional perspectives. Located in one of the important economic and political hubs of East Asia, Tokyo.

Learn More

Events and Activities

Event Series
Events
April 4, 2024

UPDATED European-Japanese dialogue on ‘How to deal with China’

Please note that this event has changed to an online only format.  Given China’s indisputable economic and geopolitical importance, China cannot be ignored, passed or de-coupled. It is at the same time a partner, a competitor as well as an ideological and potential military opponent in the evolving multipolar world order. When dealing with China, how should we balance these different relational aspects? How can we maintain a constructive exchange without jeopardizing our own interests? Through a dialogue between European and Japanese China experts, the conference How to deal with China will address these questions from different perspectives. Speakers include Hans van Ess (LMU Munich),  Mats Lennart Harborn (Traton China Group), Shigeto Sonoda (University of Tokyo), Osamu Mogi (Kikkoman Corporation), and Junichiro Ikeda (Mitsui O.S.K. Lines). The conference is co-organised by the University of Tokyo’s Global Asian Studies, the Keizai Doyukai, and the DIJ. Details and registration here

Publications
February 29, 2024

New DIJ Monograph studies political participation and well-being in rural Japan

© Iudicium

What motivates people to get involved in politics in their free time? How can they derive pleasure from it? In this new book publication (in German), DIJ political scientist Sebastian Polak-Rottmann analyses how people in rural Japan try to change local society through a variety of activities, such as agricultural, political, and social work. Based on extensive fieldwork in Southern Japan’s city of Aso (Kumamoto prefecture), he concludes that mutual enjoyment is a core element of the well-being of politically active people in rural Japan. Giving pleasure to others through activities therefore leads to a positive experience for both sides involved. With this reciprocal understanding of well-being, this book builds on relational concepts of happiness and embeds them in a new model that focuses on the connections between spatial, social, every day, individual, procedural, and temporal contexts. Wie politische Partizipation Freude bereiten kann (How political participation can be enjoyable) is published by Iudicium as volume 67 in the DIJ Monograph series.

Publications
March 8, 2024

New journal article discusses Japan’s digital capitalism and its global relevance

A new journal article by DIJ researcher Harald Kümmerle and DIJ director Franz Waldenberger studies Japan’s consensus-driven approach to data regulation as an alternative to the market-driven US, the state-driven Chinese, and the rights-driven EU models. The authors argue that Japan’s approach is based on soft regulation and aims at striking a balance between privacy concerns and commercial and public interests in the usage of data. They also show that Japan’s COVID-19 countermeasures relied on data strategies fully compatible with its consensual regulatory model. By combining rights-driven and market-driven aspects, Japan can potentially mediate between the EU and the US regimes. Japan’s approach also offers an attractive alternative for countries that do not want to pick a side in the Sino-American competition. “Japan’s ‘consensual’ variety of digital capitalism and its global relevance” was published in Asia Pacific Business Review (online first).

Event Series
Events
April 9, 2024

Film screening and discussion of patterns of moving to rural Japan

Japan’s regions have been challenged by demographic decline and an aging population for some decades. Despite or even because of these challenges, a small number of people from urban centres of the country decide to move to rural areas. This DIJ Forum (onsite only) combines two different perspectives on migration patterns from urban to rural Japan. Filmmaker Sonja Blaschke introduces her film “Reisfeld statt Tokio” (in German, with English subtitles; 30min), highlighting the story of a young urban woman and her new lifestyle in a small village in the mountains of rural Japan. Tomoo Matsuda then introduces cases of urban professionals who decide to live temporarily or permanently in Japan’s countryside. Challenging the traditional pattern of migration to the nation’s capital, he illustrates the concept of “gyaku-sankin kōtai”, exploring the merits of moving to rural areas. Details and registration here

Speakers:
Sonja Blaschke, freelance journalist
Tomoo Matsuda, Mitsubishi Research Institute
Publications

Japan 2023: Articles by DIJ researchers and alumni on Japanese society, economics, history, and politics

© Iudicium

The latest issue of the Japan Jahrbuch, the yearbook published by the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan, includes four articles (in German) written by current and former DIJ researchers on Japanese society, economics, history, and politics. DIJ director Franz Waldenberger and Kostiantyn Ovsiannikov (Atsugi) provide a quantitative review of Japan’s municipalities in demographic transition, while DIJ economist Markus Heckel assesses the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy under Haruhiko Kuroda and Kazuo Ueda. DIJ historian Torsten Weber and Anke Scherer (Bochum) analyse recent developments in historical debates and historical consciousness in Japan. Former DIJ senior research fellow Christian G. Winkler (Fukuoka) examines domestic Japanese politics in 2022/2023. The volume is edited by DIJ advisory board member David Chiavacci and DIJ alumna Iris Wieczorek. For more details please see the table of content. The book is available as softcover and e-book from the publisher here.

Event Series
Events
April 12, 2024

Hybrid Study Group on Political Economy of Green Industrial Policies in East Asia

Green industrial policies are at the center of a distinct sustainability transformation process in East Asia, most notably in China, Japan, and South Korea. These East Asian late-capitalist economies differ in many ways but also share strong commonalities that distinguish them from Western capitalist types. The three countries are now taking a leading role in developing green technologies, industries, and exports. In fact, they have been able to occupy crucial parts of the global value chain in green industries and the international political economy of sustainability. This presentation investigates why the three East Asian countries succeeded in green technology leadership but lack behind in achieving other environmental goals. What are the distinct characteristics that distinguish them from Western market economies and what are the lessons that can be drawn for countries in the Global North and the Global South alike? Details and registration here

Speaker:
Thomas Kalinowski, Ewha Womans University
Other
January 4, 2024

Franz Waldenberger im Gespräch über japanische Infrastrukturpolitik mit brand eins Magazin

Screenshot brandeins

Stuttgart 21, Flughafen Berlin, veraltete Infrastruktur, Verspätungen: Großbauprojekte laufen in Deutschland selten nach Plan. Was macht Japan anders und was kann Deutschland von Japan lernen? DIJ-Direktor Franz Waldenberger erklärt im Interview und Artikel “Im Flow” (brand eins, 1/2024), wie Investitionen in die Infrastruktur und in die Verkehrsplanung Japan einen Mobilitätsvorsprung gegenüber Deutschland verschafft hätten. So könne bei der Nettoreisezeit die Bahn in Japan bis 800 Kilometer mit dem Flugzeug mithalten, wogegen dies in Deutschland nur bis 400 Kilometer gelte. Insgesamt sei der öffentliche Transport in Japan deutlicher besser als in Deutschland, weil für ihn mehr Ressourcen genutzt würden und der Verkehr besser geplant sei. Waldenberger verweist auch auf die relativ zeit- und kosteneffiziente Umsetzung von Großbauprojekten in Japan, die im Alltag nur zu geringen Störungen führe. “Es ist Wahnsinn, welche Großbauprojekte mitten in Tokio stattfinden”, sagt er. Auch wenn neue Stadtviertel oder Verkehrsnetze gebaut würden, funktioniere “drum herum alles ganz normal weiter”.   

Event Series
Events
March 27, 2024

Hybrid Study Group on education at Japan’s National Defense Academy

© Ben Moeller

After the physical and moral devastation brought by the defeat in the Asia-Pacific War, Japanese administrations in the Cold War era charted a course of gradual rearmament against the backdrop of substantial anti-militarist sentiments among the wider society. This tension placed members of the newly rebranded Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in an uneasy position. This research project examines the institutional socialisation of the SDF’s leadership through a one-year ethnography of Japan’s National Defense Academy (NDA), where the bulk of the future senior officers of the SDF’s three branches are educated. Through this anthropological inquiry, this presentation seeks to answer how history, tradition, and identity of the Japanese SDF are negotiated at the NDA. Details and registration here

Speaker:
Ben Moeller, University of Oxford/DIJ Tokyo

Upcoming Events

04/04/2024
  • Conference
    13:00 ~ 16:00

    How to deal with China - A Dialogue between European and Japanese experts on China

09/04/2024
  • DIJ Forum
    18:30 ~ 20:00

    Moving to rural Japan – Film Screening and Discussion

12/04/2024
  • DIJ Business & Economics Study Group
    18:30 ~ 20:00

    The Political Economy of Green Industrial Policies in East Asian Neo-Developmental States

18/04/2024
  • Joint Social Science Study Group and Business & Economics Study Group
    18:30 ~ 20:00

    Who Drives the Green Shift? Environmental Attitudes in Japan from 1993 to 2020

25/04/2024
  • DIJ History & Humanities Study Group
    18:30 ~ 20:00

    Captured in Reflection – Japanese photography in Manchuria

15/05/2024
  • DIJ Study Group
    18:30 ~ 20:00

    Inhabiting the Interstice: the Regulation of Post-Bubble Housing Insecurity in Tokyo

DIJ Mailing List

Please subscribe below to stay informed about our research activities, events, and publications:

    Choose Subscription:

    = required field

    DIJ Brochure

    Please see the DIJ Brochure for more information about our institute (v. 2/2024)


    Load More...

     

    Call for Submissions

    Contemporary Japan
    current issue Vol. 36, No.1
    Contemporary Japan is open year-round for rolling submissions, with accepted publications published immediately online. Please see the instructions for submission here.

    DIJ Monograph Series

    Our monograph series is Open Access Open Access after a one-year embargo period. Downloads are available on our
    → monographs pages
    .

    Access

    DIJ Tokyo
    Jochi Kioizaka Bldg. 2F
    7-1 Kioicho Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
    102-0094 Japan
    Where to find us

    +81 (0)3 3222-5077
    +81 (0)3 3222-5420
    dijtokyo@dijtokyo.org

     


     

    DIJ-ARI Asian Infrastructures Research Partnership