Kenneth Mori McElwain

The silent majority and the power of social constructs: how the Kitagawa scandal perpetuated sexual violence Abstract. This study examines Japan’s prolonged public silence despite widespread awareness of Johnny Kitagawa’s decades-long sexual abuse, a prominent bus

We are excited to share our first article of 2026. Yukiko Nishikawa reflects on the scandal surrounding Johnny Kitagawa and explains how social constructs like seken and social scripts, such as kuki o yomu and sontaku, have perpetuated sexual abuse in Japan: academic.oup.com/ssjj/article...

Features contributions from top scholars of Japan, including @kmcelwain.bsky.social (co-editor with Robert Pekkanen and me), Axel Klein & @levimclaughlin.bsky.social, @robfahey.net, @profvekasi.bsky.social, Ko Maeda, Kuniaki Nemoto, Masahiro Zenkyo, Masaki Taniguchi, Saori Katada, & many others.

How did #Japan respond to #COVID-19?
Discover more in our Virtual Special Issue on the pandemic’s political and social impact: academic.oup.com/ssjj/pages/c...

What drives public support during global health crises?
Yida Zhai compares Japan and China’s COVID-19 responses, showing how state performance and economic aid shape approval—while revealing the fragility of China’s reliance on material support.
🔗 academic.oup.com/ssjj/article...

Dark Green Religion, trans-Pacific counterculture, and the ethno-environmental politics of Japanese Hippies on Suwanose Island and Amami Ōshima, 1965–1989 Abstract. In the 1970s, the political theory of the Japanese New Left merged with the countercultural and religious practices of the Japanese hippie moveme

In his new paper, Till Knaudt traces the history of The Tribes, a hippie commune on Suwanose Island, revealing its links to the Californian Beat scene, West Coast Zen, the Japanese New Left, and environmental activism in Japan: academic.oup.com/ssjj/article...

School memorials as sites of memory and the dynamics of remembrance after the Great East Japan Earthquake Abstract. Across the world, memorial museums commemorate losses from wars and other traumatic events, often after years or decades of discussion. In contra

In their new article, Julia Gerster and Akihiro Shibayama of Tohoku University provide a detailed analysis of the intricate local dynamics surrounding the preservation of schools as memorial sites for the victims of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake #OpenAccess: academic.oup.com/ssjj/article...

Takaichi wins, with Koizumi falling surprisingly short in the lawmaker votes - he didn't even win all of Hayashi's votes.

Probably in part down to lawmakers not wanting to ignore the constituency votes, but also a pretty clear sign of a party running scared of populist challenges from its right.

What's the difference between @epssnet.bsky.social and the "old" EPSA, and why you should come to our conference in Belfast in June 2026: epssnet.org/uncategorize...

Call for Applications: 2025 JPSA-APSA Working Group on Civically Engaged Research for Critical Issues in Society “Political Transitions in Aging Societies” - The American Political Science Association (APSA) and the Japanese Political Science Association (JPSA) are pleased to announce a Call for Applications for early-career scholars from the US and Japan…

⏳Due Sunday! Submit your JPSA-APSA Working Group application by June 1st. Explore civic research on demographic change in Tokyo, Japan, in October 2025. #PoliSci #JPSA #APSA
🔗Apply today! buff.ly/5lbML1t
#PoliSci #JPSA #APSA

Public preferences for international law compliance: Respecting legal obligations or conforming to c... Despite significant debate about the ability of international law to constrain state behavior, recent research points to domestic mechanisms that deter non-compliance, most notably public disapproval ...

As @ykshrt.bsky.social wrote, our paper (with Saki Kuzushima, now on the job market!) on how international law, backed by constitutional principles, can persuade citizens to support political reforms is now out (Open Access). A true pleasure to work with these fantastic colleagues and friends.

47 years after its publication, McKelvey’s chaos theorem is having it’s day in the House Republican Conference.

The social choice theory states that majority rule decisions in a two-dimensional space are unstable. Any point in the space can be reached through a sequence of majority votes. There …

But I'm going to start with self-promotion! New paper with my wonderful colleagues K Kawata and M Nakabayashi in Political Psychology. Narrative>statistical evidence in increasing support for poverty relief spending, using info treatments & conjoint analysis. OA at doi.org/10.1111/pops...!
polisky

Trained myself out of posting on the other site a ways back, so slowly getting back into the swing of things here. I'll mostly oscillate between cute animals, rugby (for the next few months at least), and new/cool research (mine and others). Happy to rejoin a cool community!