Stockholm Seminar on Japan (Book Talk), September 8

Japan is a liminal power, straddling contrasting identities in terms of its power status—from small power to great power—shaped by shifts in material capabilities, international standing, and overlapping social and geographic affiliations (e.g. Western, modern, and Asian). Using a historical institutionalist approach, this book traces the evolution of Japan’s grand strategy from the Meiji period (1868) to the 2020s. Drawing on selected chapters, this talk focuses on the contemporary era, examining how Japan has constructed its Indo-Pacific grand strategy around the concept of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” The authors argue that major shifts in the strategic environment created windows of opportunity that enabled Japan’s core decision-makers to construct—and reconstruct—its grand strategy.

Saori N. Katada is the Louis G. Lancaster Chair of International Relations at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Political Science.  Previous to her current appointment, she was Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. Her 2026 book with Kei Koga, Japan’s Grand Strategy: Liminal Power in an Uncertain World, was published by Oxford University Press. Her single-authored books include: Japan's New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific (Columbia University Press, 2020), and Banking on Stability: Japan and the Cross-Pacific Dynamics of International Financial Crisis Management (University of Michigan Press, 2001), which received the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Book Award.  She earned her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her B.A. from Hitotsubashi University (Tokyo). 

Moderator: Dr. Patrik Ström, Director, European Institute of Japanese Studies, Stockholm School of Economics

• Date and Time: Tuesday September 8, 15:15-16:45
• Language: English
• Venue: Room Torsten, Stockholm School of Economics, Sveavägen 65
• Register for the seminar by September 6

The Japan seminar series is jointly organized by the European Institute of Japanese Studies at Stockholm School of Economics, the Asia Programme at The Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Turkish Studies at Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence University. It features monthly seminars on Japanese economy, politics and society. 

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