User:L7mRyu/J. Mark Ramseyer

Article Draft
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The article was supposed to be included in the journal’s March 2021 release, but the release was suspended so that it could include a number of responses to his article as the journal issued an “expression of concern” and said the article was under investigation. As of October 2022, no further articles by Ramseyer have been published in the International Review of Law and Economics, although the original online preprint of Ramseyer's article, according to the journal's policies, "will remain globally available free to read whether the journal accepts or rejects the manuscript."

Comfort women
In 2021, controversy arose when the International Review of Law and Economics published an online pre-print of an article by Ramseyer that challenged the narrative that comfort women were coerced into sexual servitude in Japanese military brothels in the 1930s and 1940s. Ramseyer described the comfort women as prostitutes, arguing that they "chose prostitution over those alternative opportunities because they believed prostitution offered them a better outcome." The article referenced contracts as proof that some comfort women made significant amounts of money and that coercion was not always a factor. In the article, Ramseyer also argues that Korean men were responsible for recruiting comfort women, and that Japanese comfort women outnumbered Korean comfort women.

In February, Ramseyer's Harvard colleagues in history and east Asian studies Professors Andrew Gordon and Carter Eckert submitted a statement critical of Ramseyer's article to the International Review of Law and Economics asking that the journal delay formal publication until it had been approved by further expert peer review. Shortly after, activist and comfort woman survivor Lee Yong-soo met with Harvard students via Zoom to tell her story, recognize the disputed nature of Ramseyer's description of comfort women as "prostitutes," and call for a formal apology from Japan and from Ramseyer. Harvard Law School Professor Jeannie Suk Gersen then published an article in The New Yorker, translated into Korean and Japanese in March, describing the effects of Ramseyer's "dubious scholarship" on Japan-South Korea relations and scholars' reactions. The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus published a special issue on comfort women including four essays focusing on the issues surrounding the Ramseyer article, citing Ramseyer's "serious violations of scholarly standards and methods that strike at the heart of academic integrity." The Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard issued a statement on March 15th which questions whether Ramseyer's article meets Harvard's standards of scholarly integrity. Over a thousand economists signed a letter stating that the article misconstrued game theory and economics to give "cover to legitimize horrific atrocities," and that the "article goes well beyond mere academic failure or malpractice in its breach of academic standards, integrity, and ethics." Economists and Nobel laureates Alvin Roth and Paul Milgrom wrote that the article "reminded [them] of Holocaust denial." Several academic historians of Japan, writing in a peer-reviewed journal, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, checked Ramseyer's sources and found that "he cites, as supporting evidence, historical scholarship which argues the opposite of his claims," and argued that the paper should be retracted on grounds of academic misconduct. In light of these critiques, the International Review of Law and Economics issued an "Expression of Concern" regarding the validity of Ramseyer's piece, and postponed publication of the print version of the issue in question until such time as scholarly replies to Ramseyer's piece could be gathered and added to the issue for context. In January 2022, Ramseyer published a response to criticisms of his original article, titled “Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War: A Response to My Critics”. As of October 2022, no further articles by Ramseyer have been published in the International Review of Law and Economics, although the original online preprint of Ramseyer's article is still accessible online and, according to the journal's policies, "will remain globally available free to read whether the journal accepts or rejects the manuscript."

Faison comments on draft 10.11.2022
You have added substantially to the second paragraph of the comfort woman section, including new sources/citations. These additions help give more context regarding the debate over Ramseyer's work. Please proofread (for ex., "cite" not "site"), and check for tone. For example, you reference Ramseyer's "problematic scholarship." This is not neutral wording, so either put the phrase in quotation marks (if it is a phrase used by your sources), or consider leaving out the word "problematic" and let readers draw their own conclusions. Finally, you might consider researching and updating the last sentence of the article lead:"The article was supposed to be included in the journal’s March 2021 release, but the release has been suspended so that it can include a number of responses to his article. The journal issued an “expression of concern” and said the article was under investigation."By now there should be some resolution to this issue. I did a quick look at the table of contents for the journal's March 2021 issue, and I did not see the Ramseyer article listed there. Can you do some research to find out whether they actually published it, beyond the release of the online version in December? Is the December release online version of the article still available? This would be something that Laurie Scrivener could help you research, and if it was me I would enlist her help.