HIKOTANI Takako

HIKOTANI Takako is a professor at the Center for Global Education at the University of Tokyo and head of the Center’s International Support Division. She oversees the Go Global Gateway (GGG), a program designed for all undergraduate students at the University of Tokyo to develop their “global competence” — the ability to live and work together with diverse people around the world. She is also responsible for the University of Tokyo Global Unit Courses, a short-term summer program with courses taught in English, as well as other collaborative efforts with overseas universities and new initiatives with corporate and individual partners.

Before joining the University of Tokyo, she was a professor at Gakushuin University. From 2016 to 2021, she served as the Gerald L. Curtis Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Politics and Foreign Policy at Columbia University. Prior to that, she taught at the National Defense Academy of Japan.

Her research focuses on civil-military relations, Japanese domestic politics, and Japanese foreign policy. Her publications in English include “How the Ukraine War is Changing Japan,” Foreign Affairs, April 28, 2022; “The Japanese Diet and Defense Policymaking,” International Affairs, 94:1, July 2018; and “Trump’s Gift to Japan: Time for Tokyo to Invest in the Liberal Order,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2017.

Professor Hikotani received her BA from Keio University, MAs from Keio University and Stanford University, and a PhD in Political Science from Columbia University, where she was a President’s Fellow.