About

Richard S. Katz is a Professor Emeritus and Academy Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, within the Department of Political Science. He holds a PhD from Yale University. His research primarily focuses on political parties and electoral systems in the industrialized democracies of Europe, North America, and the British Commonwealth. Additionally, he has published work on public support of the arts, the European Union, and electoral behavior. Katz has authored several books, including 'A Theory of Parties and Electoral Systems,' 'Democracy and Elections,' and 'Political Institutions in the United States,' along with numerous edited and co-edited volumes. His academic career includes teaching positions at the City University of New York, the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Central European University, and the Institut d’Etudes Politique de Lille. He currently serves on the executive committee of the European Consortium for Political Research and as chair of the core group of experts on party regulation for the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE. Katz has also served as an editor for prominent political research journals and is actively involved in various editorial boards.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Internal medicine
• Endocrinology

Selected publications

• United States: Political Developments and Data in 2024

  European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook · 2025-06-22 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The year 2024 in American politics was dominated by the forthcoming election, with the withdrawal of President Biden and his replacement by Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, and the nomination and election of Donald Trump as the next president. The Republicans also achieved majorities in both houses of Congress.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Overcoming the Digital Divide and R&D Gap

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Part of why Japan’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grow so much less than those elsewhere is a big technological shortfall. SMEs employ 70% of Japan’s labor force but conduct just 5% of spending on R&D. The SMEs that do invest earn more profits and grow faster. This shortfall could be greatly reduced if the government devoted more of its financial aid for R&D to SMEs, particularly startups. At present, almost 90% goes to firms with at least 500 employees, those with less need. Meanwhile, Japanese SMEs are woefully inefficient, partly because they invest so little in the latest digital technology. When asked why, many SME owners say they’re not sure how they’d benefit and there are not enough affordable private consultants to help them. Japan could help remedy this problem if it followed Europe, which in 2020 invested $300 million in training SMEs how to exploit modern software. Japan spends a miserly sum.

  PublisherDOI

• Universities as Entrepreneurial Communities

  2024-02-12 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Universities play a vital role in nurturing entrepreneurs, not just by offering courses, but, equally important, by creating a community of would-be entrepreneurs. Those who personally know entrepreneurs are far more likely to become one. Universities bring students into contact with professors with entrepreneurship experience, as well as other students with similar ambitions. If the still-active companies created by living alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were a nation, their global revenues would be equal to the GDP of the world’s 11th-largest economy. But it took decades for universities like MIT and Stanford to create the network of courses, entrepreneurship clubs, and professors acting as mentors to create results like this. Japan is trying to emulate this. Entrepreneurship classes are becoming more numerous, and the government is encouraging spinoff firms based on research done at universities. More entrepreneurs are coming out of top universities like Tokyo University, Keio, and Waseda. So far, however, it’s slow going.

  PublisherDOI

• The Need for a Productivity Revolution

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Large parts of Japan’s population are suffering from declining living standards, in large part because of flagging productivity, that is, output per worker. A nation can consume a certain amount of goods and services per person only by producing that amount per person. Productivity, in turn, depends on not only how much it invests in modern technology, but also how well its companies use it. Japanese companies get less economic payoff from every dollar they invest in so-called knowledge-based capital than do most other rich countries. As a result, per capita GDP has fallen from 83% of the US level in 1990 to just 63% by 2020. The consequences for people are dire. Nearly 40% of Japan’s employees are non-regulars (part-timers or temporaries) who are paid a third less per hour than regular workers, or even less. Real wages for the typical worker have stagnated. Seniors have faced two decades of cuts in social security and healthcare per elderly person.

  PublisherDOI

• Entrepreneurship

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Japan can foster entrepreneurship and embrace creative destruction today because it has done so before. Most of today’s corporate giants emerged from ambitious, risk-taking entrepreneurial firms that began in the late 1940s through the early 1970s, or else earlier in the 1870s through 1920s. That’s made Japan rich in record time. During this process, people were willing to lose jobs and see inferior companies die because they could get good new jobs at rising wages. Japan was safe for failure. In the aftermath of the two 1970s oil shocks, however, Japan switched from creating new innovators to protecting older firms from competition in the name of preserving jobs. It did so because the primary social safety net was one’s current job at one’s current company. The system was no longer safe for failure. However, without room for enough experiments, most of which will fail, there will be too few triumphs. This shift eventually led to the three lost decades that began in 1990.

  PublisherDOI

• Who Doesn’t Get to Become an Entrepreneur?

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract One of the reasons Japan has so few entrepreneurs is that certain sections of society are de facto excluded. First, older people start fewer new growth-oriented businesses, and Japan is aging. One consequence of aging is that it takes longer for younger people to become managers, and most successful new entrepreneurs have had some managerial experience. A second factor is the dearth of early-stage finance. Unless would-be founders are already rich, they cannot invest enough to start big enough. Those firms that don’t start big enough are less likely to survive. Even if they do survive, they won’t grow as well. Third, women face even higher obstacles than men, from a lack of managerial opportunities at traditional companies to greater difficulty in getting loans from banks. In Japan, there are just two female entrepreneurs for every 10 men, the biggest gender gap among rich countries.

  PublisherDOI

• The United States: Political Developments and Data in 2023

  European Journal of Political Research Political Data Yearbook · 2024-03-27

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The 2023 political year in the United States was dominated by three major themes: the legal problems of former President Donald Trump, particularly in light of his campaign to regain the White House in 2024; the near-total dysfunctionality of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives; and the state of the economy, especially inflation, but also employment. Lurking in the background, and in large measure captive to these concerns, were the issues of immigration and aid to Israel and Ukraine.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Big Company Disease

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Sometimes, the most successful long-lived companies have the worst blind spots, leaving them unable even to perceive that times have changed, let alone come up with ways to adapt to that change. That’s why economic progress in every country requires new, entrepreneurial companies able to see things with fresh eyes. Because there are so few entrepreneurs in today’s Japan, it is particularly vulnerable to what the Japanese call the “big company disease.” This is not about a lack of intelligence or technological genius, but of commercial vision: the ability to transform technical innovations and ideas into goods and services that household and business customers want. The failure of Fujitsu versus Cisco in Internet networks is a case in point. As in the Fujitsu case, many older incumbents reject innovations because they often disrupt existing business models, a phenomenon known as disruptive innovation. This syndrome is hardly unique to Japan. The only answer is a business system that nourishes new entrants, thereby allowing new ideas to be attempted.

  PublisherDOI

• A Political Scenario for Successful Reform

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Pessimism about reform in Japan is understandable, but it can blind one to the potential for change. Low growth, technology, and other megatrends are producing splits both among various interest groups in the LDP support base as well as within each of them. In the absence of good productivity, aging is leading to unpopular tax hikes on working-age people. Technology and climate change are causing big splits among Japan’s leading corporations. The bureaucracy is increasingly divided between reformers and defenders of vested interests. The rise in non-regulars is forcing change in the labor movement. While the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) seems to have a lock on power, that power rests not on popular support, but on the fecklessness of the opposition. Those disenchanted with the LDP increasingly stay home. The LDP has to fear that, if the opposition gets its act together, it could again lose power over issues of reform and revival, as in 2009, this time in a lasting fashion.

  PublisherDOI

• Overcoming the Recruitment Obstacle

  2024-02-12

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Changes in generational attitudes and gender relations are reducing what had long been a huge obstacle to new company growth: the difficulty in recruiting talented, experienced staff and managers. Under the lifetime employment system, once employees had worked for a company for five years, most would continue working there for decades. This pattern was reinforced by company policy: a design engineer leaving Toyota to work at a startup would not be hired by another top manufacturer, let alone a different automaker, if that startup failed. That made joining a startup too risky. In today’s labor shortage, an increasing share of talented people, especially those in their twenties and thirties, are switching jobs in large numbers. As a result, the percentage of firms impelled to accept mid-career hires almost doubled from just 35% in 1994 to 70% in 2019, even at large firms. Meanwhile, women who are denied promotion opportunities at traditional firms are flocking to startups.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Peter Mair

  Universitätsklinikum St. Pölten

  38 shared

• Ruud Koole

  19 shared

• David M. Farrell

  University College Dublin

  9 shared

• Luciano Bardi

  European University Institute

  9 shared

• William C. Knowler

  7 shared

• David M. Nathan

  5 shared

• Qing Pan

  Milken Institute

  5 shared

• Dana Dabelea

  University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

  5 shared

Education

• PhD, Political Science

  Yale University

  1974