MAJOR INITIATIVES

The Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies strives to be on the forefront of research related to our core specialty of trans-Pacific and inter-Asian relations. As such, we concurrently operate several research projects that deal not only with the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, but also the larger regional environment in which this relationship exists.

Those interested in learning more about the Reischauer Center are encouraged to join our mailing list for announcements on upcoming events.

Current Projects

• Generously sponsored by The Japan Foundation Center, the Reischauer Center is in the middle of a five-year project that seeks to examine policy best practices between the United States and Japan across five specific areas: energy, healthcare, infrastructure, agriculture, and public diplomacy. As part of this project, faculty at Johns Hopkins SAIS create a new pilot course each academic year that addresses that year’s theme. Previous examples include “Japan’s Energy Future,” “Japan’s Demographically-Driven Healthcare Crisis,” and “Infrastructure and Transpacific Cooperation.”
• Also in partnership with The Japan Foundation, the Reischauer Center is currently in the third and final year of project that examines the changing nature of ‘idea industries’ in a comparative context. Past case studies have explored the role of key actors in the policy-making process in countries such as the United States, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Germany, and Brussels. A monograph containing the final research output of this initiative will be published in early 2018.
• An ongoing research theme of the Reischauer Center has been how cities influence the global policy agenda. While the nation state has long dominated as an analytical tool, it is becoming increasingly clear that cities are important political-economic actors. The results of this research can be seen in Dr. Kent Calder’s Singapore: Smart City, Smart State (Brookings Institution Press, 2016) and a course he taught in the Spring 2017 term at Johns Hopkins SAIS, “Washington, Beijing, and Beyond: Global Cities in World Affairs.”
• Related to Dr. Kent Calder’s New Continentalism: Energy and Twenty-First-Century Eurasian Geopolitics (Yale University Press, 2012), the Reischauer Center is currently researching the growing interconnections across the Eurasian continent through programs such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the critical role geography plays in the international political economy. As a result, the Reischauer Center’s research has been integrated into courses at Johns Hopkins SAIS, such as “The Emerging Geo-Economics of Eurasia” and “Asian Geopolitics and Political Economy.”