I am Tomoko Takahashi, who has just arrived in April 2023. In the field of International Relations, I specialize in international institutions, where multilateral diplomacy takes place. As the area for empirical analysis, I focus on China and the Global South countries as its coalition partners. I have been conducting research on the relation between power and norm/rule-making behaviors of major powers in the United Nations General Assembly. Methodologically, I combine data creation and its statistical analysis with case studies using United Nations documents and Chinese public documents.
As the genesis of my research, I have been interested in the extent to which cooperation is possible in international institutions, even with the rationalistic calculations or intentions of states. I have commuted to the United Nations International School (UNIS) in Hanoi, Vietnam and to the International School of Beijing (ISB) in China from my kindergarten to elementary school days, and these experiences connect to my current interest in international cooperation. Moreover, as I have been raised as the so-called “Third Culture Kid,” I feel so much at home at CSEAS, where diverse cultures intersect.
Throughout my undergraduate days in the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo, I have wavered between the desire to participate in international cooperation myself and the aspiration to have academic dialogues with diverse people over time and space, which I discovered by participating in seminars. At the master’s program at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo that I moved onto, and at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies that I went to as a visiting student, I gradually settled down to conducting research on international cooperation as the target of observation. I received my second master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Chicago, where I was surrounded by political scientists that adopt the positivist type of research, and they were in stark contrast to the University of Tokyo experts on History and China Studies. This is when I started to explore my research identity. I went back to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and passed the oral defense for my doctoral dissertation just the other day; in its writing process, I tried my best to adopt the Chicago style of theory/ hypotheses-creating and testing, while taking up China and the Global South that have been said to be unique.
With my experiences above, I always cherish learning from experts with various disciplines and methodologies. As I believe that research on multilateralism, in its ultimate from, requires the expertise from international institutionalists, area studies researchers from each member country, and the specialists on the issue areas (such as those on economy, security and environmental issues), I look forward to having dialogues with scholars in the field of sciences as well as the experts on ASEAN countries at CSEAS. I have already started to consult various experts after my arrival, and I am thinking of proactively conducting interview research in addition to data and document analyses.
I deeply appreciate everyone for welcoming me to start my career as a postdoctoral researcher in this fascinating environment at Kyoto.
