Fulbright awards take political science professors to Japan, Serbia

BOONE—A love of politics is taking two Appalachian State University professors to exotic locales.

George Ehrhardt, an assistant professor in Appalachian’s Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, is fascinated with Japanese politics. He will spend the next six months in Japan learning more about the members of the Clean Government Party and their voting patterns through a Fulbright Hays award from the U.S. Department of Education.

Marvin Hoffman, a professor in the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice and director of Appalachian’s master of public administration program, will travel to Serbia to research changes occurring as a Communist country transitions to a Republic form of government, and help a university there develop a training program for future government leaders.

George Ehrhardt spent three years in the 1990s teaching English in Japan through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. During the process, he fell in love with the country and its people.

“Politically, Japan is interesting because the country has taken a lot of the Western ideas regarding democracy and implemented them in different ways, yet done so successfully,” Ehrhardt explains.

The country has four major political parties, including the Buddhist-affiliated Clean Government Party (CGP), which Ehrhardt will study while in Japan. Founded in the 1960s, the CGP advocates humanitarian socialism and an open, independent foreign policy.

He will observe an election while he is in Japan, and after developing relationships with those in the party, research why party members vote the way they do.

“There are two theories about why people choose to associate with political parties,” Ehrhardt said. “One is that they like what the party stands for. The other is social identity in which a person says my father belongs to this party and my mother, so I’m a member, too.”

About 10 percent of all Japanese voters belong to the CGP. But while the party was founded in Buddhist ideals of passivism, Ehrhardt said the ruling coalition, of which the CGP is part, is moving away from that ideology. “What the CGP has voted for is contrary to its beliefs,” he said. “I’m interested in discovering to what extent the rank and file voters in the CGP see this as being problematic, and I want to evaluate the strengths of these two visions of party identification.”

Ehrhardt also will teach a class at the University of Kansai-Gaidai and work with administrators there to help strengthen the exchange agreement between Appalachian and the university.

Ehrhardt, who teaches a course on Japanese politics at Appalachian, says it’s important that the United States and the rest of the world gain a better understanding of Japan and Asia.

“China, Japan and India are larger, more powerful and more important than any European country,” Ehrhardt said. “If you look at where the world is going, there is one continent that has half the world’s population and its most dynamic economy. America needs to understand Asia, because that’s where the future is.”

Marvin Hoffman has been training future town and city managers for 17 years.

In October, he heads to Serbia for four months to help the University of Belgrade set up a program in local government leadership through an award from the Fulbright Scholar Program.

This will be Hoffman’s third trip to Serbia. He first visited the country in 2005 when the Soros Open Society Institute asked him to consult with the University of Belgrade on programs to train government leaders.

While in Serbia, Hoffman will teach a course in American politics in the University of Belgrade’s Center for American Studies, provide assistance with curriculum development, and possibly teach a course on public management.

“The whole idea of professional management is something that they lack over there,” Hoffman said.

After years of operating under a centralized, Communist government, the Serbian government is beginning to decentralize. It is sending control of some programs, such as economic development and education, to city governments. “I want to look at how they are going to find qualified people to do these new tasks, because the cities haven’t had to operate these kinds of programs,” Hoffman said.

Residents in Serbia have been slow to accept the change from a Communist to Republic form of government, he said. “For the elderly, it has been very difficult to move from a guaranteed income with free health care and few worries about social needs to having to wonder whether the small amount of money they have accumulated in their life time will carry them through.”

Others worry that there are no qualified individuals to run the programs previously controlled by a national ministry. “The perception has been that a lot of people aren’t ready to assume these management roles, because it was the national ministry’s job, so I’m not sure that a lot of people are excited about this change,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman will share his Serbian experiences via the Internet and MySpace.com. He also will return to Appalachian with a wealth of information about the growth of local government in south central Europe.

“Appalachian’s goal of internationalizing campus and bringing more of the outside world to Boone enriches the experience for the student,” Hoffman said. “American kids don’t know much about southeastern and south central Europe.”