Amid the convergence of multipolarity and polycrisis, great powers leverage their strengths to adapt, while “trading states” such as Japan and Germany must recalibrate foreign policies long aligned with the liberal order. At the same time, the Japanese LDP-led government, seeing the risks and opportunities associated with the global AI boom and the global chip war, has ushered in a renaissance of its historical industrial policy. Using an updated version of Rosecrance’s “trading state” concept and theory-testing process tracing, Steven Schwarz examines the political economy behind Germany’s and Japan’s foreign policy amid the Russian war in Ukraine and the “Chimerica” crisis. He also analyzes Japan’s new semiconductor industrial policy through the multiple-streams framework, highlighting the roles of bureaucratic and economic actors in its industrial policy renaissance. Details and registration here

Speaker: Steven Schwarz, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities