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

Japanese author Shimao Toshio (1917–1986) exemplifies the postwar tensions between cultural production and debates on national identity in Japan. His Southern Island essays explore the relationship between Japanese and Ryūkyū cultures, presenting peripheral regions as vital to Japan’s cultural landscape. While his works attracted the attention of intellectuals such as Okamoto Keitoku and Arakawa Akira and became part of broader discussions on Okinawan culture and the anti-reversion movement of the 1960s and 1970s, they were also criticized for essentialist depictions that appeared to affirm Japan’s claims over the Ryūkyū Islands. This presentation examines Shimao’s conception of culture and identity within the discourse of postwar cultural homogeneity, employing a combination of quantitative text analysis using KH Coder and qualitative interpretation to reveal how his writings simultaneously reflect and question dominant narratives of Japanese identity. Details and registration here

Eight decades after the end of the Second World War, Germany’s dealing with  its past still attracts attention as exemplary or exceptional. In East Germany, a doctrinal anti-fascism soon prevailed, while in West Germany, the path to a self-critical confrontation with the past was taken: a decades-long, arduous process marked by social learning successes, but also by setbacks and scandals. Historian Norbert Frei provides an overview of how Germans have dealt with their Nazi history and analyzes the current state of Germany’s memory culture. Former diplomat Yoshinori Katori will offer a comparative perspective on memory culture in Japan with a focus on current issues of historical reconciliation between Japan and South Korea. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception. This is an onsite only event. Details and registration here

Despite the increasingly tangible effects of climate change in Japan the population continues to show comparatively low levels of climate concern. While the Japanese government has set ambitious carbon reduction targets, international observers have criticised the absence of concrete measures to achieve them. Domestic public responses, however, remain limited, and interest in the topic among the population appears to be waning. Using original data from a nationwide survey conducted in September 2025, the speakers analyze how climate awareness, disinterest, and pro-environmental attitudes vary across groups, focusing on how fear, grief, guilt, shame, and “climate nostalgia”, the fear of losing familiar seasonal and cultural elements, shape engagement and detachment from the climate crisis in Japan. The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and a small reception. Details and registration here