From Politics to People? Changing Protagonists and the Transformation of NHK Television News

As digital transformation, political pressure, and audience fragmentation reshape contemporary media environments, public service media face growing challenges in maintaining their democratic role. This talk examines how these pressures are reflected in everyday editorial choices by focusing on changes in television news at NHK, one of the world’s largest public broadcasters. Taking NHK’s flagship evening news programme as its starting point, the talk looks at how television news has changed over time at the level of topics, narrative styles, and the portrayal of political and social actors.

Symposium: From Economic Security to Economic Statecraft: Insights from Japan, Europe, and the United States

This symposium brings together leading experts on economic security and economic statecraft to share views on how debates and policies on these issues are evolving in different regions of the world. Over the past decade, economic relations have become highly politicized—and in some cases, securitized—due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the rise of economic coercion, and the return of trade war.

Valedictory Lecture: Technology Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Governance: A Retrospective of 40 years

From microelectronics in the 1980s to AI in the 2020s, technological innovation has played a major role in reshaping economies and employment. As have financialization and its ideological partner neoliberalism. Reflecting on 40 years of research focused especially on Japan, this presentation will also consider possible futures.

With commentaries from Simon Deakin (Cambridge), Mari Sako (Oxford) and Tim Sturgeon (MIT).

Japan's Spongy-Middle Revolution

In 1961, Thomas C. Smith published a short essay entitled “Japan’s Aristocratic Revolution.” In his characteristically clear and economical prose, he begins, “There was no democratic revolution in Japan because none was necessary: the aristocracy itself was revolutionary.” The essay goes on to make an argument now so familiar as to feel self-evident: low-ranking samurai carried out the revolution we call the Meiji Restoration without much help from either the peasant masses or the bourgeoisie.

The Right-wing Shift towards Immigrant Exclusion in Japan and Beyond

Extreme right populism is on the rise worldwide, enforcing the exclusion of immigrants and foreigners. Why does the trend towards immigrant exclusion occur? To approach this quiz, I will focus on the case of Japan, where the Sansei party became the first right-wing populist party to enter mainstream politics in the 20 July 2025 Upper House election. Through the Japanese case, I will pursue mechanisms of the emergence of right-wing populism and the exclusion of immigrants and foreigners.

Anarchist Association: Knowledge, Language, and the History of the Modern World

This seminar analyzes the idea of association as developed among anarchists in imperial Japan during the early twentieth century. In doing so, it proposes anarchist association as both subject and analytical lens to develop a critical approach in global history. It emphasizes viewing the modern world from peripheral positions as well as acknowledging the concept of association as both a socio-political practice and a methodological tool, thus using anarchist traditions to uncover and integrate overlooked actors, archives, and epistemologies.

Soeda and the Making of Modern Japan

Japan was transformed between 1870 and 1940 into a country more likely to invade than be invaded with military power founded on a robust industrial base and a state structure comparable to those in contemporary Europe. But how did these changes impact on local communities and what was their contribution to them? This paper looks at political and economic change from early Meiji to early Showa in the small town of Soeda in northern Kyushu.

The Rise and Fall of the Konbini: Cold Chains, Retail Wars and Logistical Friction in Postwar Japan

Few retail forms are as ubiquitous—and as culturally distinctive—as the Japanese convenience store. With more than 55,000 outlets nationwide, konbini have become a dense infrastructural mesh woven into the rhythms of everyday life. How did these stores become so entrenched in Japanese life, and what are the social and environmental costs of the convenience they provide? Beginning with the spread of refrigeration and the first supermarket boom in the 1960s, the talk shows how small family retailers fought back by lobbying for legislation to block the spread of large retail outlets.
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