Richard J. Samuels (born November 2, 1951) is an American academic, political scientist, author, Japanologist, Ford International Professor of Political Science the former Director of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[1] Samuels's teaching career at MIT has been interrupted periodically for visiting professorships in Tokyo, Rome, Berlin, and elsewhere.
[1] Samuels has also served as vice-chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council, and as chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent federal grant-making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy-oriented research in the United States.
In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 2011 he received the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star, an imperial decoration awarded by the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese Prime Minister.
[2] In a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Richard Samuels, OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 90+ publications in 4 languages and 3,000+ library holdings[3] His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, International Security, Foreign Policy, Washington Quarterly, International Organization, Political Science Quarterly, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The National Interest, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Daedalus, and other policy and scholarly journals.