Japan Foundation CGP Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies
Dr McClean is the Japan Foundation CGP Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies. Previously, I was the Toyota Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan’s Center for Japanese Studies and a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Program on U.S.-Japan Relations.
I study the politics of age, institutions, representation, and social policy, especially in Japan. Substantively, I am interested in youth representation, the age orientation of welfare programs, and how societies confront the challenges posed by declining birth rates and aging populations. My work has been published or is forthcoming in the British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Nature Medicine, Political Psychology, PS: Political Science & Politics, and other venues in political science and public policy. My article on strategic election timing in Japan received the 2022 Best Paper Award from the American Political Science Association’s Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior Section. My research has also been featured in news outlets such as the Asahi Shimbun, Nikkei Shimbun, and The Washington Post.
Currently, I am completing a book manuscript, Silver Democracy: Youth Representation in an Aging Japan, that explores the causes and consequences of youth underrepresentation in democracies. In the book, I examine the institutional factors that help explain why young politicians are so rare in countries like Japan; provide evidence that many voters would like to see this age bias corrected; and show that the shortage of young politicians has a significant impact on the social policies that get promoted and implemented by governments.
I received my BA in International Relations and Japanese from Tufts University (summa cum laude), my MA in East Asian Studies from Harvard University, and my PhD in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. Prior to earning my PhD, I was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fulbright Fellow at Kobe University.