Professional Affiliation

Professor, Keio University

Expert Bio

Professor Yasushi Watanabe earned a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 1997. After post-doctoral research at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, he joined Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus (SFC) in 1999. His books include Culture and Diplomacy: The Age of Public Diplomacy (2011, in Japanese); and the co-edited volume Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States (2008). Professor Watanabe was also a Fellow at Downing College, University of Cambridge in 2007 and a Visiting Professor at L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques (SciencesPo) de Paris in 2013. He has served on the Advisory Council on Public Diplomacy of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Advisory Committee on NHK World and he was an editorial member of Gaiko (Diplomacy) magazine.

Wilson Center Project

The U.S.-Japan Relations in the Libertarian World

Project Summary

The research topic Professor Yasushi Watanabe has in mind is to explore the relationship between libertarian ideology and East Asia, i.e. how libertarian thinkers and policy makers make sense of political, economic and cultural situations in East Asia, especially such issues as human rights, religious freedom, political participation, trade, finance, environment, defense, and the “rise of China.”

Major Publications

Soft Power Superpowers: Cultural and National Assets of Japan and the United States (2008)

The Routledge Handbook of Soft Power (2016)

Handbook of Cultural Security (2018)