Takashi Inoguchi is professor of political science at the Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo and former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations. His many publications include (co-edited with Purnendra Jain) Japanese Foreign Policy Today (Palgrave, 2000), (as editor) Japan’s Asian Policy (Palgrave, 2002 ) and (co-edited with Saori Katada and Hanns Maull) Global Governance: Germany and Japan in the international system (Ashgate, forthcoming 2004). He appears occasionally as a commentator on BBC, CNN, and CNBC Asia.

Recent articles

Two political partnerships - Ronald Reagan and Yasuhiro Nakasone in the 1980s, George W. Bush and Junichiro Koizumi in the 2000s - helped forge the world’s most important “special relationship”. Takashi Inoguchi explains how personal chemistry smoothed Japan’s route to global influence.

Japan is learning a new geopolitics. Its sense of identity, capacity, and relation to the world is shifting amidst great economic, military and regional pressures. But what kind of foreign policy model will Japan choose? One of the country’s foremost analysts explores the possible answers to a reopened question.

Why has the Japanese government decided to send armed forces to Iraq to assist in its economic recovery? A leading scholar of Japanese politics places the decision within the context of the country’s search for a self-defined global role over the past generation.