Susan Pharr

Susan J. Pharr is an academic in the field of political science, a Japanologist, and Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Director of Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University.Harvard, Arts & Sciences: [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~spharr/bio.htm Faculty bio.] ] Her current research focuses on the changing nature of relations between citizens and states in Asia, and on the forces that shape civil society over time.Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies: [http://fas.harvard.edu/~rijs/people/faculty/s_pharr.html Institute bio.] ]

In the spring of 2008, the Japanese government acknowledged Pharr's life's work by conferring the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon. Accompanying the badge of the Order was a certificate explaining the award as recognition of the extent to which Prof. Pharr has "contributed to promoting intellectual exchange between Japan and the United States of America, and to guiding and nurturing young Japanologists." [Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs: [http://www.mofa.go.jp/ICSFiles/afieldfile/2008/05/02/2008harunojyokun.pdf "2008 Spring Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals," p. 4.] ]

Education and academic life

Susan Pharr received her B.A. (1966) with high honors from Emory University. In 1966-67, she was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. She earned her M.A. (1970) and Ph.D. (1975) in political science from Columbia University, where she specialized in comparative politics with a focus on Japan.Harvard, Arts & Sciences: [http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~spharr/cv.htm Faculty curriculum vitae.] ]

Her interest in Japan was largely a matter of happenstance. As a first-year graduate student looking for recreation and a few self-defense skills for the streets of New York City, she signed up for a judo class that turned out to be made up almost entirely of Japanese black belts who were fellow Columbia students. Talking with her judo classmates and venturing in their company for sushi piqued her interest sufficiently to spur her to take courses on Japanese society and politics with James William Morley, Herbert Passin, and, later on, Gerald Curtis. In an intellectual world that was galvanized by the question of what made countries succeed or fail politically and economically, she found the study of Meiji Japan riveting and soon made Japan the center of her doctoral work in comparative politics. [see above] ]

While completing her dissertation, she launched her career at the Social Science Research Council in New York, where from 1974-76 she served as Staff Associate for its Japan Committee, a post later held, coincidentally, by her Reischauer Institute colleague Theodore Bestor. [see above] ]

In 1977 she became an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1980. On leave from Wisconsin she spent 1983 in the Agency for International Development, where she was assigned responsibility for improving U.S.-Japan aid coordination, and two years, from 1985-87, as Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. [see above] ]

Pharr joined the Harvard faculty in 1987. She has served as Director of Harvard's Program on U.S.-Japan Relations since 1987 and became Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics in 1991. From 1992-95 she served as chair of the Government Department. [see above] ] In 1995-96, she held the Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Studies. [see above] ] In 1996-98, she was as Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. [see above] ] As an active participant in university life at Harvard, Dr. Pharr is on the Steering Committee of the Asia Center and on the Executive Committee of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. She serves on the Faculty Advisory Committee for the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and is a member of the University Committee on the Environment and the University Committee on the Status of Women. She is also a Senior Scholar of the Harvard Academy of International and Area Studies. [see above}]

The impact of any one faculty member is hard to measure in a large multi-faceted institution like Harvard; and yet her name does crop up in a range of contexts. For example, when students proposed creating a student-run magazine about Japan, Prof. Pharr agreed to be a faculty advisor. [Nawaday, Yin. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=233829 "Students Launch Japan Magazine: "Inside Japan" to Focus on Culture, Politics and Economics,"] "Harvard Crimson." October 24, 1990.] As one of only 41 female tenured professors in the early 1990s, she could only acknowledge that "in many ways Harvard is very much a male institution," which makes her role in the University's Committee on Women all the more significant. [Wilde, Anna D. [http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=221775 "Searching for a Critical Mass: Women in the Faculty,"] "Harvard Crimson." June 10, 1993.]

Professor Pharr is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has been a Fellow or Visiting Research Scholar at the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the East West Center, University of Tokyo, Sophia University and Keio University. [see above] ]

Honors

*Order of the Rising Sun, 2008. [Consulate General of Japan, Boston: [http://www.boston.us.emb-japan.go.jp/eng/pharr.htm Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (3rd class).] ]

Fellowships and grants

* 1986-87 -- Principal Investigator for grants from Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, U.S. Agency for International Development and Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission for international project on "Japan and the U.S. in Third World Development."
* 1986-88 -- Principal Investigator, grant from the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission through the Social Science Research Council for bi-national project on "Media and Politics in Japan in Comparative Perspective."
* 1990-96 -- Principal Investigator for grant to the Harvard Program on U.S.-Japan Relations from Akiyama Aiseikan Corporation for research on "Japan and the Third World."
* 1994-97 -- Grant from the V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation for project on "Yen for the Earth: Japan's China Environment Initiative."
* 1995-97 -- Co-Principal Investigator for grant from the Mellon Foundation on "The Performance of Democracies."
* 1996 -- Fellow of the Abe Fellowship Program, Social Science Research Council, for project on "Political Ethics and Public Trust in Japan, Italy, and the United States."
* 1996-98 -- Co-principal Investigator for grant from the National Science Foundation for a binational Japan-U.S. project on "Japan's Political Reform: Electoral Institution Change and Political Culture."
* 1996-99 -- Member, Steering Committee, for project on "Social Capital, Democracy, and Public Affairs," administered by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and funded by grants from the Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carnegie Foundation.
* 1997-98 -- Invitee to the Rockefeller Study Center, Bellagio, Italy, as co-organizer (with Robert D. Putnam) of a conference, June 29-July 3, 1998, on "Public Trust and Governance in the Trilateral Democracies."
* 1999 -- (Summer) Posco Fellow, Research Program, East-West Center.
* 2000-02 -- Principal Investigator, Grants from the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission and the Center for Global Partnership for a project on "Civil Society in Japan," the first stage of a three-year project joint with the East-West Center, and in cooperation with Keio University, on "Civil Society in the Asia-Pacific."

elected works

Much of Prof. Pharr's research has explored the social basis for democracy in Japan. Her research interests include comparative political behavior; comparative politics of industrialized nations; democratization and political development in Japan and Asia; civil society and nonprofit organizations; political ethics and corruption; environmental politics; the role of the media in politics; U.S.-Japan relations; Japanese politics; and international relations in East Asia. [see above] ] Her publications include:

* 1981 - [http://books.google.com/books?id=CbPPHQAACAAJ&dq=susan+pharr "Political Women in Japan".] Berkeley: University of California Press. 10-ISBN 0-520-04071-6 (Paperback edition, 1982).
** 1989 -- "Nihon no josei katsudo-ka" (tr. Emiko Kaya). Tokyo: Keiso shobo. "Japanese translation of book published by University of California Press in 1981."
* 1990 - [http://books.google.com/books?id=gRG9AAAACAAJ&dq=susan+pharr "Losing Face: Status Politics in Japan".] Berkeley: University of California Press. 10-ISBN 0-585-13162-7 (Paperback edition, October 1992.)
* 1996 - [http://books.google.com/books?id=6oqMZp1Z14AC&dq=susan+pharr&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 "Media and Politics in Japan"] (with Ellis S. Krauss). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. 10-ISBN 0-824-81761-3 "Research volume sponsored by the Social Science Research Council."
* 2000 - [http://books.google.com/books?id=msbhn5BZwAIC&dq=susan+pharr&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 "Disaffected Democracies: What's Troubling Democracies?"] (with Robert D. Putnam). Princeton: Princeton University Press. 10-ISBN 0-691-04924-6 "Research volume resulting from a conference sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund."
* 2003 - [http://books.google.com/books?id=O-pt9NrUgjIC&dq=susan+pharr&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 "The State of Civil Society in Japan"] (with Frank J. Schwartz). New York: Cambridge University Press. 10-ISBN 0-521-53462-3

References

Further reading

* Gewertz, Ken. [http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/02.26/11-japan.html "History of the Japanese at Harvard: When Jewish and black students were excluded, Japanese students were accepted into final clubs and other exclusive societies,"] "Harvard Gazette." February 26, 2004.
* Gewertz, Ken. [http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/03.18/13-democratization.html "Looking at Germany, Japan, Iraq: A tale of three occupations; U.S. 'occupations' compared by panel,"] "Harvard Gazette." March 18, 2004.
* Pharr, Susan. [http://harvardmagazine.com/2001/11/in-the-eye-of-the-storm.html "Forum: In the Eye of the Storm For Japan, a "lost decade"--and after,"] "Harvard Magazine." November-December 2001.
* Walker, Ruth. [http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/05.08/11-asiacenter.html "‘Asia: The Next Ten Years:’ Report from conference marking 10 years of Harvard’s Asia Center,"] "Harvard Gazette." May 8, 2008.

ee also

*Tonarigumi