Richard Samuels
Ford International Professor of Political Science; director, Center for International Studies
areas of expertise: comparative politics and political economy, japanese industry, politics, and government, japanese technology policy, japanese energy industry/policy, japanese aerospace, japanese defense industry, italy
Richard Samuels served as head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992-1997 and as vice chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. From 2001-2007 was chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent federal grant-making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy-oriented research in the United States.
Grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation and the Smith Richardson Foundation have supported a decade of field research in Japan. His most-recent book, Securing Japan: Tokyo’s Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia, was named one of the five finalists for the 2008 Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book in international affairs. His previous book, Machiavelli’s Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, a comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan, won the 2003 Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies and the 2004 Jervis-Schroeder Prize for the best book in International History and Politics, awarded by the International History and Politics section of the American Political Science Association.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu