In the AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series, experts from AREA Ruhr are looking forward to meeting up with authors of newly released academic books that deal with East Asia from a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives. At AREA Ruhr, we are curious about getting insights into recently published research results and discussing the “research journey” that authors have been engaged in.
All events are conducted online via Zoom and are open to be joined after registration. Following the exchange between the invited author and an AREA host, the audience is encouraged to join the discussion.
The seventh episode of the AREA Ruhr Book Talk Series will be conducted in February 2026. Please find information on the event below.
05 Feb 2026, 5 PM CET
“Dominance Through Division: Group-Based Clientelism in Japan”
by Amy Catalinac (New York University, United States)
Host: Axel Klein (AREA Ruhr)
Further information & registration
About the author
Amy Catalinac is an Associate Professor of Politics at New York University. She is a scholar of electoral systems, distributive politics, and contemporary Japanese politics. She is the author of two Cambridge University Press books, Dominance Through Division: Group-based Clientelism in Japan (2025) and Electoral Reform and National Security in Japan (2016), as well as articles in journals such as the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, World Politics, and Comparative Political Studies. She earned her Ph.D. at Harvard University, where she was also a postdoctoral fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, and has held positions at Australian National University and Princeton University. Professor Catalinac is currently Associate Editor at the Journal of Politics, and serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies at NYU.
About the Book
The governance of Japan presents a puzzle: it is a democracy yet is dominated by a single party that wins almost all elections. Stanger still, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its policies are not particularly popular with voters. How has this situation arisen, and how is it sustained? Amy Catalinac argues that when politicians compete in electoral districts with discernible voter groups, they can make allocations of central government resources contingent on how those groups vote. Using a wealth of quantitative and qualitative data spanning 1980-2014, Catalinac shows that LDP politicians have been doing just that, leveraging their dominance to make groups compete for resources. Dominance Through Division sheds new light on why the LDP has remained in power for so long, why opposition parties are weak, and why policy preferences do not always align with vote choice. It also explains why Japan’s 1994 electoral reform has had limited impact.
The book has been published by Cambridge University Press. As a member of UDE and RUB you can access the online version of Dominance through Division via your respective library.
Please register through the following link to receive access to the online Book Talk:
https://uni-due.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/ptG4tD5xSG6I15rTOSZCpA