Bio

Patricia L. Maclachlan received her PhD in comparative politics from Columbia University and is now Professor of
Government and the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.
Her publications include Consumer Politics in Postwar Japan: The Institutional Boundaries of Citiz en Activism
(Columbia University Press, 2002), The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West
(Cornell University Press, 2006), which she co- edited with Sheldon Garon, and The People’s Post Office: The
History and Politics of the Japanese Postal System, 1871- 2010 (Harvard University East Asia Center, 2011). Her
current research focuses on the political economy of Japanese agriculture and the reform of the agricultural
cooperative system. Dr. Maclachlan serves on the Japan- U.S. Friendship Commission and the United States- Japan
Conference on Cultural and Educational Interchange (CULCON), the American Advisory Committee of the Japan
Foundation, and the editorial board and board of trustees of the Journal of Japanese Studies.