Kuniko Ashizawa

Kuniko Ashizawa is a senior lecturer in international relations at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom. Previously, she was a lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Pristina in Kosovo and a visiting scholar in the graduate school of international relations and Pacific studies at the University of California, San Diego. Her publications include "When Identity Matters: State Identity, Regional Institution-Building, and Japanese Foreign Policy," International Studies Review; and "Japan, the U.S. and Multilateral Institution-Building in the Asia-Pacific: The Case of APEC and the ARF," in T.J. Pempel and Ellis S. Krauss, Beyond Bilateralism: U.S.-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific (Stanford University Press, 2004).

During her time at the Wilson Center, Ashizawa focused on Japan's approach toward international "peacebuilding," with a particular emphasis on the country's ongoing reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan (and related economic assistance to the western border regions of Pakistan). Her project considered the origin of Japan's growing activism in international peacebuilding over the past decade, articulated characteristic features of Japan's overall approach toward international peacebuilding, and evaluated Japan's peacebuilding activities in terms of their contribution to overall peacebuilding efforts of both international actors and recipient countries, and how their impact affects Japanese foreign policymaking.