Jennifer M. Miller

Professor Miller’s first book, Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan (Harvard University Press, 2019), offers a new interpretation of the postwar U.S.-Japanese relationship, one of the United States’ most significant international alliances. It argues that this alliance was not simply the product of American economic or security interests, but that it was fundamentally shaped by American and Japanese ideas about the values and practices necessary to build democracy. Drawing from research in government archives and materials from labor unions, intellectuals, philanthropic organizations, and activist groups, it argues that the Cold War fostered new ideas about democracy, specifically the belief that democracy was not simply political or institutional but also psychological. This emphasis on “spirit” over democratic practice offered a crucial language of reconciliation between American policymakers and conservative Japanese leaders in the aftermath of a massive war. Yet this shared governmental vision was heavily contested by Japanese activists, who articulated their own visions of democracy premised on active citizenship and government accountability to the people. These beliefs fuelled large-scale protests against the U.S.-Japanese alliance that altered the alliance’s security provisions. Bringing together the history of foreign relations, popular protest, and democratic thought, this book provides a new understanding the trans-Pacific Cold War order, and the impact of democratic visions, both domestic and foreign, on the conduct of U.S foreign policy.  Portions of this research have been published in the Journal of Contemporary History, Diplomatic History, and in an edited volume entitled The Power of the Past.

Professor Miller also writes about the contemporary relevance of the U.S.-Japanese relationship for American understandings of globalization, international power, and hegemony.  Her most recent article, which explores how Japan’s economic rise in the 1970s and 1980s shaped President Donald Trump’s approach to international trade and globalization, can be found here.  She is currently working on an article that explores neo-conservative thinking about East Asian growth and the nature of capitalism in the 1970s and 1980s.

The author of two oral history collections on the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Professor Miller is also a faculty leader of the Dartmouth Vietnam Project.