Koji Nakakita received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1997. Before joining the Hitotsubashi faculty in 2011, he was a member of the department of politics at Rikkyo University for ten years. Professor Nakakita is a specialist of the politics and history of contemporary Japan. In English, he has published a book, “The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan: The Realities of ‘Power’” (Routledge, 2020).

Prof. Kamikawa specializes in contemporary Japanese politics and comparative political economy. He holds a Ph.D. from Kyoto University. His English publications include “Managing the Bank-System Crisis in Coordinated Market Economies,” (Governance, Vol.19, 2006, with Torsten Svensson and Masaru Mabuchi), “Market-Based Banking in Japan,” in Iain Hardie and David Howarth eds., Market-Based Banking and the International Financial Crisis (Oxford University Press, 2013), “The Failure of the Democratic Party of Japan,” (Social Science Japan Journal, Vol.19, 2016), “TEPCO’s Political and Economic Power before 3.11,” and “Nuclear Policy after 3.11,” in Tsujinaka Yutaka and Inatsugu Hiroaki eds., Aftermath (Trans Pacific Press, 2018).

Shiro Sakaiya received his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2008. He specializes in Japanese politics and is the author of the following books: The Constitution and the Public Opinion (Kenpo to Yoron, 2017) , Political Participation (Seiji Sankaron, co-authored, 2020).

Prior to joining Keio University, Dr. Jimbo was a Director of Research at the Japan Forum on International Relations Inc. (JFIR) in 2003-2004, and a Research Fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) in 1999-2003. He obtained his Ph.D from the Graduate School of Media and Governance at Keio University in March 2005. His main research fields include Japan-US Security Relations, Japanese Foreign and Defense Policy, Multilateral Security in Asia-Pacific, and Regionalism in East Asia. He has been a member of various governmental commissions and research groups including the Globalization Working Group of the 21st Century Vision (Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, Cabinet Secretariat. His recent articles (in English) include, Ken JIMBO ed., Regional Security Architecture in the Asia-Pacific, Tokyo Foundation (2010) (in Japanese) Ajia Taiheiyo no Chiiki Anzen Hosho Ahkitekucha; Dr. Jimbo is concurrently a Senior Research Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation, and the Canon Institute for Global Studies.

Takashi Terada received his Ph.D from Australian National University in 1999. Before taking up his current position in April 2012, he was an assistant professor at National University of Singapore (1999-2006) and associate and full professor at Waseda University (2006-2011). He also has served as a visiting professor at University of Warwick, U.K. (2011 and 2012) and a Japan Scholar at Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington D.C. (2012). His areas of specialty include international political economy in Asia and the Pacific, theoretical and empirical studies of regional integration, and Japanese politics and foreign policy. His latest book is East Asia Versus the Asia-Pacific: Competing Regional Integrations (in Japanese University of Tokyo Press, 2013). He is the recipient of the 2005 J.G. Crawford Award.

Naoko Kumagai is professor in the School of Global Studies and Collaboration at Aoyama Gakuin University. Her research focuses on international relations theory, humanitarianism, and conflict resolution. She earned a Ph.D. in political science at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her publications include The Comfort Women: Historical, Political, Legal, and Moral Perspectives (Tokyo: I-House Press, 2016), which is the English version of Jūgun Ianfu Mondai (The Issue of Comfort Women) (translated by David Noble). Since 2021, she has served as director of the Japan Chair at the University for Peace (Universidad para la Paz in Costa Rica)

Prof. Takenaka specializes in Japanese Politics and Comparative Politics. He has been affiliated with the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies since 1999, during which he also served as a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He earned his BA in law from the University of Tokyo, and his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University. His publications include Shusho shihai [Prime Minister’s Rule] (Chuo-koron Shinsha, 2006) and the award-winning Sangiin to wa nani ka [What Is the House of Councillors?] (Chuo-koron Shinsha, 2010). Failed Democratizatoin in Prewar Japan: Breakdown of a Hybrid Regime (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014). “Evolution of Japanese security policy and the House of Councilors,” Japanese Journal of Political Science, 22:2, (June 2021), 96-115. “Expansion of the Japanese prime minister’s power in the Japanese parliamentary system: Transformation of Japanese politics and the institutional reforms” Asian Survey 59:5 (September/October 2019), 844-865.

Professor Tsuji’s research interest is on gender and politics in Japan, including the political representation of women, welfare regimes, and gender and family policies. Her publications in English include “Women and the Liberal Democratic Party in Transition” in Beyond the Gender Gap in Japan edited by Gill Steel (University of Michigan Press, 2019), and “Explaining the Increase in Female Mayors: Gender-Segregated Employment and Pathways to Local Political Leadership” in the Social Science Japan Journal, 20(1): 37–57, 2017.

Kenneth Mori McElwain is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo. His research focuses on comparative political institutions, most recently on differences in constitutional content across countries. He received his BA from Princeton University and PhD in political science from Stanford University, and previously taught at the University of Michigan, before moving to his current post in 2015. His work has been published in a number of journals and edited volumes, including American Journal of Political Science, Journal of East Asian Studies, Social Science Japan, Chuō Kōron, and the Journal of Japanese Studies. He was the co-editor of Political Change in Japan: Electoral Behavior, Party Realignment, and the Koizumi Reforms, APARC/Brookings Institutions Press. He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of Social Science Japan Journal, published by Oxford University Press, and is a board member of the UTokyo Center for Contemporary Japanese Studies.

Yoichi Funabashi is Chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation and a former Editor-in-Chief for the Asahi Shimbun. He is a contributing editor of Foreign Policy (Washington, DC). He served as correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun in Beijing (1980-81) and Washington (1984-87), and as American General Bureau Chief (1993-97). In 1985 he received the Vaughn-Ueda Prize for his reporting on international affairs. He won the Japan Press Award, known as Japan’s “Pulitzer Prize”, in 1994 for his columns on foreign policy, and his articles in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy won the Ishibashi Tanzan Prize in 1992. His books in English include The Peninsula Question (Brookings Institute, 2007); Reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific, ed. (USIP, 2003,); Alliance Tomorrow, ed. (Tokyo Foundation, 2001); Alliance Adrift (Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1998, winner of the Shincho Arts and Sciences Award); Asia-Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Institute for International Economics, 1995, winner of the Mainichi Shimbun Asia Pacific Grand Prix Award); and Managing the Dollar: From the Plaza to the Louvre (1988 winner of the Yoshino Sakuzo Prize). His recent articles and papers in English include: “Fukushima in review: a complex disaster, a disastrous response”(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2012); “Lessons from Japan’s nuclear accident” (East Asia Forum, 26 March 2012); “The end of Japanese illusions”(New York Times, 11 March 2012); “My findings in Japan’s existential fallout” (Financial Times, 9 March 2012); “Challenges for Rising Asia and Japan’s Role” (Yale Global Online, September 2010); “Forget Bretton Woods II: the Role for U.S.-China-Japan Trilateralism” (Washington Quarterly, April 2009); “No One Model for Global Economy” (Yale Global Online, March 2009); “Keeping Up With Asia” (Foreign Affairs, September/October 2008); “Power of Ideas: The US is Losing its Edge” (Global Asia, Fall 2007); “Stuck on the Sidelines”, (Newsweek International, 5 March 2007); “Koizumi landslide: the China factor” (Yale Global Online, 15 September 2005); “The world should also have a vote”(International Herald Tribune, 25 March 2004); “Koizumi opens a Pandora’s box”(Financial Times, 7 January 2004); “China is preparing a ‘peaceful ascendancy’ ” (International Herald Tribune, 30 December 2003); “Learning from five years of trialogue” (China-Japan-US: Meeting New Challenges, 2002); “Northeast Asia’s strategic dilemmas” (Assessing the Threats, 2002); “Asia’s digital challenge”(Survival, Spring 2002); “Japan’s unfinished success story” (Japan Quarterly 2001); “Japan’s moment of truth” (Survival, Winter 2000-01); “International perspectives on national missile defense: Tokyo’s temperance” (The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2000); “Tokyo’s depression diplomacy” (Foreign Affairs, November / December 1998); “Thinking trilaterally” (China-Japan-US: Managing the Trilateral Relationship, 1998); and “Bridging Asia’s economics-security gap” (Survival, Winter 1996-97). He received his B.A. from the University of Tokyo in 1968 and his Ph.D. from Keio University in 1992. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University (1975-76), a visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1987), a Donald Keene Fellow at Columbia University (2003), and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo Public Policy Institute (2005-2006).

SHIBATA Narumi is a research fellow at API. She has career experience working in the social sector and overseas Japanese embassy(Israel) as well as in the technology industry.

She holds a BA in International Politics, Economics and Communication from Aoyama Gakuin University, Japan and MA in Political Science from Stockholm University, Sweden.