Ellis Krauss

Expertise

Krauss is a leading expert on Japanese politics, U.S.-Japan relations, and Japan's political economy.

Current Projects

Krauss pictured with Pekkanen (right) in front of the Diet building.

Krauss currently is writing a book (with Robert Pekkanen, University of Washington) on how Japan's long-ruling Liberal Democratic Party has responded, developed as an institution, adapted to Japan's electoral reforms of the 1990s. Krauss is also doing co-authored research on the consequences of electoral reform and non-reform on parties’ personnel strategies (with Matthew Shugart and Robert Pekkan), changes in the influence and role of politicians and bureaucrats in postwar Japan (with Michio Muramatsu and Ethan Scheiner), and on U.S.-Japan relations in comparative perspective to U.S.-U.K. and U.S.-German relations (with Christopher Hughes and Verena Blechinger)

 

Background Notes

Krauss, along with Matt Shugart of IR/PS and Robert Pekkanen, has recently received a half-million-dollar three-year grant from the National Science Foundation to study electoral reform and non-reform consequences on political parties’ candidate, party, parliamentary, and government appointment strategies in eight countries (Japan, New Zealand, Ukraine, Bolivia, U.K., Germany, Lithuania and Portugal).

In 2008, Krauss also received a Japan Foundation Fellowship to study the changing role of Japan’s prime minister. Additionally, he was invited to give a presentation at the Japan Political Science Association annual meeting on the topic of the study of Japanese politics in the U.S.

In 2003, Krauss was chosen as one of the six members of the "U.S. Knowledge Leaders" tour to Tokyo to interact with Japanese private sector, government, and cultural elites, sponsored by the Japan Federation of Economic Organizations' Keizai Koho Center.

In 1998-2000, Krauss received a prestigious Abe Fellowship to conduct research on the U.S., Japan, and APEC. In 1992-93 he was named "Distinguished Lecturer" of the Association for Asian Studies. He directed a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar on "The Democratic Experience in Japan" in 1994.

Krauss is on advisory boards of several journals and important committees of national organizations in the field of Asian and Japanese Studies. He joined IR/PS in 1995.

Professor Krauss in front of the New Zealand Cabinet Office, July 2006.

 

Professional Activities

Member, Advisory Board, The Japan Foundation, 2002 - 2006

Member, Editorial Board, The Pacific Review, 2001 - present

Member, Advisory Board, Asian Survey, 1997 - present

Member, Advisory Board, Journal of Japanese Studies, 1992 - 1995 and 2001 - present

Member, Executive Committee, Japan Politics Research Group, 1998 - present

Member, Screening Committee [for faculty hiring], Hiroshima Peace Institute, Japan, 2000 - present

Member, Editorial Board, Social Science Japan Forum

Member, Evaluation Committee of the East Asian Program, University of Washington, 2008, 2005, 2001; and the University of Sheffield, U.K., 2003

Board of Directors, Japan Policy Research Institute, 1994 - present

Research Interests

• Japanese Politics (graduate and undergraduate)
• Politics of U.S.-Japan Relations (graduate and undergraduate)
• Japan and the U.S. in Asia (graduate) and Japanese Foreign Policy (graduate)

Professor Krauss interviewing former Cabinet Minister Koike Yuriko in her Diet Member Office, October 2008.

Future Japanese Voter at an Election Rally

Publications of Note

Krauss in 2004 published a co-edited book with T.J. Pempel, UC-Berkeley, Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia Pacific (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004). In 2000 he published a book titled Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000), about NHK, Japan's mammoth public broadcaster, and its relationship to and consequences for Japanese politics. Subsequently it was translated into Japanese with a new introduction and published in 2006 as NHK vs. Seiji by Toyo Keizai Press, a noted Japanese publisher. Krauss also is co-editor of Media and Politics in Japan (1996). His previous works include co-editing and contributing articles for Democracy in Japan and Conflict in Japan. He has written many articles published in professional journals dealing with political science and Asian Studies, including, recently, articles in the American Political Science Review and the British Journal of Political Science, two of the top journals in the field.

Recent Publications

Journal Articles:

“Policy Dissension and Party Discipline: The July 2005 Vote on Postal Privatization in Japan,” British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 38 (July 2008), pp. 499-525. (co-authors: Kuniaki Nemoto and Robert Pekkanen)
                            
“Japan’s New Security Policy,” Survival, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Summer 2007), pp. 157-176. (co-author: Christopher W. Hughes)

Co-editor of journal special issue: “Managing the American MedUSA: Political Economy Alliance Perspectives,” The Pacific Review, vol. 20, no. 3, 2007. (co-editors: Christopher Hughes, Verena Blechinger)

“Electoral Incentives in Mixed-Member Systems: Party, Posts, and Zombie Politicians in Japan”, (Co-authors Robert Pekkanen and Benjamin Nyblade)
American Political Science Review Vol. 100, No. 2 May 2006

Japan’s ‘‘Coalition of the Willing’’ on Security Policies [co-author Robert Pekkanen]
Orbis, Volume 49, Number 3 Summer 2005

‘Presidentialization’ in Japan? The Prime Minister, Media and Elections in Japan [co-author Benjamin Nyblade]
British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 34 April 2004, pp. 357-368

"Explaining Party Adaptation to Electoral Reform: The Discreet Charm of the LDP?" [co-author: Robert Pekkanen]
Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1 Winter 2004, pp.1-34

"The U.S., Japan, and Trade Policy: From Bilateralism to Regional Multilateralism Regionalism+"
The Pacific Review, Vol .16, No. 3 (2003), pp. 309-331

Recent Books:

Broadcasting Politics in Japan: NHK and Television News

If you are interested in ordering the book, please visit Cornell University Press.

IRGN 416 Postwar Politics in Japan

Course Description:

Overview of postwar politics in Japan, including American Occupation reforms, political institutions, major political factors, mass and elite, and political behavior. Special attention will be paid to the issue of Japan’s changing democracy.

IRGN 460 U.S.-Japan Relations

Course Description:

This course focuses on the politics and policymaking involved in conflictual and cooperative economic and security relations between the United States and Japan. We will examine especially the interaction between the domestic and international levels in each country and how these shaped the sources, process, and outcomes of relations between the two countries.

The emphasis in the course is on actual case studies of policymaking and related politics in specific issues of economics and security. The course will not deal much with finance or monetary issues as these are dealt with extensively at IR/PS in other courses related to Japan. Rather, the emphasis is primarily on trade and other non-finance political economic issues, and on military security issues.

Japan’s Foreign Policy

Course Description:

The main purpose of this course is to explore Japan’s foreign policy in Asia in the wake of the Cold War, especially the emergence of new multilateral governance structures, the economic and military rise of China and the problem of North Korea, the emergence of Japanese and other nationalisms. This course dovetails with such other courses as “International Relations of the Asia-Pacific” but unlike the latter focuses on Japan and goes into more detail on Japan’s its foreign policies in the region. It also dovetails with IRGN 460 “The Politics of U.S.-Japan Relations,” unavoidably of course involving the U.S to some degree; but unlike 460 it is not concerned with the bilateral interaction but with the foreign economic and security policies of Japan  towards the Asian region and major regional and global institutions.