The history of political leadership in Italy and Japan is as fascinating as it is different, according to a scholar who studies both countries.
Dr. Richard J. Samuels, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, spoke at AU Tuesday about the history and leadership styles of Italy and Japan. Samuels was the featured speaker at the annual Warren S. Hunsberger Lecture, sponsored by the Center for Asian Studies in the School of International Service.
During his lecture, titled "The Odd Couple: Political Leadership in Italy & Japan," Samuels likened the countries to characters in the 1965 Neil Simon play by the same name.
"Italy and Japan do seem to be an odd couple," Samuels said. "Italy is Oscar - insouciant. Japan is Felix Unger - fastidious."
Though Italy and Japan both worked to create a national identity in the mid-19th century, only Japan succeeded, he said.
"Today the Japanese are able to celebrate their cultural and linguistic homogeneity. Italians don't have that," Samuels said.
According to Samuels, Japan's success was due to its leaders, a series of "young, brash, visionary" oligarchs who discredited any part of Japan's history and culture - including the genetic lineage of the oligarchs themselves - that came from neighboring countries like China and Korea.
In the end, the search to create a national identity led the Japanese to think of themselves as a "golden people" with a pure dynasty.
Italy, however, Samuels said, was mostly unable and unwilling to declare cultural homogeny. And when the country was at its most nationalistic, it was under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, he said.
Mussolini used the legacy of Rome more effectively than any head of state before him, Samuels said.
The Italian leader used anything that was great in Rome's past to legitimize his government, Samuels said. Mussolini had busts of himself wearing ancient tunics - like the ones worn in Caesar's day - created and displayed in public.
Samuels suggested that modern and historical leadership in both countries were guided by the theories of Niccol? Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher who lived in the 13th and 14th centuries and wrote about power and leadership.
Samuels' theories are explored further in his book, "Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan."
Samuels said he hoped his book and the lecture offered a different way of looking at culture and leadership.
"Culture is irresistible," he said. "Culture can be a fine tool in the hands of a leader. It can constrain, but it also can inspire."
The Warren S. Hunsberger Lecture was created to honor the founding director of the Center for Asian Studies at American University.
The lectures provide a great opportunity to bring both nationally and internationally renowned scholars to American University, said professor Quansheng Zhao, the center's director.
"We bring ... scholars to broaden students' horizons so that students do not only read from books, but have face-to-face contact," Zhao said.
Zhao called Samuels' lecture on Italy and Japan "an excellent comparative study"
