December 13, 2001

JAPANESE SCHOLAR JOINS SMU POLITICAL SCIENCE FACULTY

SMU (DALLAS) -- Takayuki Sakamoto, a scholar of East Asian politics and economics, will join the faculty of Southern Methodist University’s Department of Political Science in January 2002.

Currently at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, Sakamoto will become an assistant professor of political science in SMU’s Dedman College. He will teach courses on the politics of East Asia, Japanese politics, comparative economic policy, and political economy, which is the study of the relationship between politics and markets. In addition, Sakamoto will help SMU’s John G. Tower Center for Political Studies with its Japanese Studies Program. Tower Center scholars work on a variety of issues in public and international affairs, including national security and economic policies.

Sakamoto is the author of Building Policy Legitimacy in Japan: Political Behavior Beyond Rational Choice. He has published several journal articles on Japanese public policy and politics and on comparisons between Japan and Western Europe’s monetary systems. Sakamoto is a member of the American Political Science Association and the Japanese Political Science Association.

From 1987 to 1990, he worked as a journalist for Japan’s largest daily newspaper, The Yomiuri Shimbun, where he wrote a series of award-winning articles on Japanese society. Sakamoto has a bachelor’s degree in Portuguese and international relations from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Santa Barbara.