Shalfi, center, with the Tokyo Foundation members

Jonathan Shalfi, who received a Sylff fellowship in 2013 and 2014 while attending the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California, San Diego, visited the Tokyo Foundation in July 2014 to discuss Japan’s energy policy with experts at the Foundation.

He was then attending the University of Tokyo as an exchange student to study Japan’s energy security, particularly the potential steps Japan can take—such as an expanded role for the Self-Defense Forces—to ensure safe shipments of fuel from abroad.

Three Foundation experts—Zentaro Kamei, Hikaru Hiranuma, and Kenji Someno—explained the policymaking challenges facing Japan in the field of energy policy, and suggested that an attempt to link Japan’s energy security with the SDF could prove to be challenging.

Shalfi and Yamaguchi, left

The experts pointed out that in analyzing Japan’s energy policy, it would be helpful to have an understanding of the differing positions of the various stakeholders, notably such key government agencies as the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. They also emphasized the importance of having a good grasp of the policymaking process and the complex political system in Japan.

Jonathan has also interviewed such leading national security experts as Tokyo Foundation Senior Fellow Noboru Yamaguchi and former Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto.

Jonathan has had an interest in Japanese culture and language since an early age. He later developed an interest in energy issues at school. These two, apparently totally unrelated fields came together following the March 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, which triggered the nuclear accident in Fukushima. He was teaching English at a high school in Hyogo, Japan, at the time. Since the “triple disaster,” he has been researching energy policy in Japan.

The Tokyo Foundation wishes him the best of luck with his research and career pursuits.

2014-1Awardees

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce the 11 recipients of SRA awards in the first round of fiscal 2014 (April 2014 to March 2015). We received high number of applications from around the world and it was a very tough, competitive selection.

The applications were carefully screened for eligibility, the feasibility of the proposal, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicant’s current academic pursuits.

Congratulations to the winning applicants, and many wishes that the opportunity for research abroad turns out to be a fruitful one.

The names of the awardees and their home and the host institutions can be viewed here.

From left to right, Mitsuhide Shiraki, Junichi Hisatsuka, Aya Kudo, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thanh, Naoto Onzo, Mari Suzuki, and Yoko Kaburagi.

Two Waseda University graduate students were presented with Sylff fellowships during a ceremony held on June 18, 2014, at an administrative building named after university founder Shigenobu Okuma. The recipients for the 2014 academic year were Aya Kudo, who is in the fourth year of a doctoral program at the Graduate School of Political Science, and Nguyen Thi Phuong Thanh, a first-year doctoral student at the Graduate School of Commerce.

Naoto Onzo, the university’s executive director for research promotion, public relations, and the graduate school system and the chairman of the Sylff steering committee, congratulated the two awardees and encouraged them to demonstrate academic excellence as well as personal integrity as leaders who can make a positive contribution to global society.

Professor Mitsuhide Shiraki, chairman of the selection committee noted, “I hope that this year’s recipients will utilize their fellowships to assiduously advance their research. We look forward to hearing their progress half a year from now. At the end of the year, they will be presenting their research results to the steering committee and representatives from the Tokyo Foundation.”

Aya Kudo is undertaking an analysis of the state-run Chinese media and how it is affected by both domestic and foreign private capital. Having been enrolled in a double-degree program, she has undergraduate and master’s degrees from both Waseda University and Fudan University, a Sylff institution in China.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thanh is studying the influence of foreign directors on corporate governance and management performance in Japan. She is from Vietnam and has an MBA from Waseda University. She hopes to return to Vietnam as a researcher in 10 years’ time and to contribute to deepening Japan-Vietnam ties in various ways.

Attending the ceremony from the Tokyo Foundation were Director for Leadership Development Mari Suzuki and Program Officer Yoko Kaburagi, who expressed the hope that the new fellows would take advantage of Sylff’s global network to advance both their academic pursuits and personal development.

Paulo, center, with the Tokyo Foundation program officers

Paulo Ravecca, who received a Sylff fellowship while at York University and was awarded a Sylff Research Abroad grant in 2011, visited the Tokyo Foundation on May 27, 2014. Ravecca was invited to Japan by the Embassy of Ecuador to work on a book with another scholar.

Ravecca is currently enrolled in a PhD program at York University and is writing his dissertation on the “politics of political science” in Chile and Uruguay. It focuses on the trajectory of political science as a discipline in the two countries, with references to Argentina and Brazil as well. Ravecca shows that the changes in political science in these Latin American countries are a product of power relations at different levels.

Ravecca’s analysis is expected to shed new light on the world of political science. We at the Tokyo Foundation wish him all the best with his dissertation.

On May 19, 2014, the University of Latvia organized a conference featuring nine Sylff fellows on the topic of “World in Change: From Consumption to Sustainability, from Competition to Collaboration, from Hierarchy to Networks, from Being Good to Doing Good.” The university joined the Sylff community in 2002.

The opening ceremony featured remarks by Rector Marcis Auzins, who reflected on the impact of the Sylff program at the university; Professor Ina Druviete, the former Latvian minister of education and science; Nippon Foundation Chairman Yohei Sasakawa, who described his work towards the eradication of leprosy and the discrimination that comes with ; and Tokyo Foundation Director for Leadership Development Takashi Suzuki, who encouraged Sylff fellows to take the initiative by referring to Latvia’s rapid economic recovery after the Lehman crisis.

Following the opening ceremony, nine Sylff fellows made presentations on the conference theme. They included six fellows from University of Latvia, two from the University of Leipzig, and one from Jagiellonian University. All presentations are available in PowerPoint at the university’s website.

The Tokyo Foundation thanks Ilona Baumane, a Sylff fellow at the University of Latvia, for organizing the conference and enabling our participation.

Roger Cliff, right, with Leadership Development Director Mari Suzuki.

Roger Cliff, who received a Sylff fellowship in 1991 while attending the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, visited the Tokyo Foundation on April 4 to participate in a dialogue on East Asian security. The day-long workshop on extended deterrence in East Asia, organized by the Tokyo Foundation, and the Atlantic Council, was attended by security experts from Japan, the United States, and South Korea.

Roger is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, where he is engaged in the Center’s Asia Security Initiative as a specialist on East Asian security issues. The Brent Scowcroft Center is the Atlantic Council’s flagship international security program, analyzing how global trends and emerging security challenges will impact the United States, its allies, and global partners.

It was a great joy to see a Sylff fellow working with the Tokyo Foundation’s research fellows. He noted that he regularly checks the Foundation’s website and email newsletter and finds the information helpful, especially the articles by Tsuneo Watanabe, the Foundation’s director of foreign and security policy research and senior fellow.

Sylff was endowed at Princeton University in 1989, and Roger was one of the early fellows at the university. He has focused his research on East Asian security and US foreign policy toward the region and is now an expert producing cutting-edge analyses and developing strategies for how the United States can best work with like-minded countries to shape the future. Read his articles and comments here.

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The Tokyo Foundation is eager to keep track of the activities of Sylff fellows in various fields, so please keep us posted. Also, be sure to keep your contact information up-to-date. This is essential in enabling us to provide you the latest information on additional support programs and other initiatives.

Masaaki Higashijima

Masaaki Higashijima, a 2008 Sylff fellow at Waseda University, was named the recipient of the 2014 Annual International IDEA/Electoral Integrity Project Award for Best Graduate Student Paper on Electoral Integrity. The Tokyo Foundation extends its warm congratulations to Mr. Higashijima.

The award is sponsored by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) and the Electoral Integrity Project of Harvard University and the University of Sydney. The winner was selected on the basis of the paper’s potential significance—both theoretical and policymaking—to aspects of the election cycle.

His award-winning paper, titled “Beat Me If You Can: The Fairness of Elections in Dictatorships,” examines the dilemma dictators face in holding elections, based on statistical analyses of 67 authoritarian countries. While rigged contests may help dictators maintain their power, the results will not generate reliable feedback about popular support. The paper argues that a dictator’s power of popular mobilization determines the level of electoral integrity, theorizing that rulers with financial resources, effective organizations, and a weak opposition rely less on electoral manipulation. By contrast, fraud is more pervasive where dictators have fewer economic resources, weaker organizations, and face a stiff opposition.

The award committee noted that the paper represented a significant contribution to an understanding of electoral integrity in authoritarian states. The award will give Higashijima an opportunity to publish his paper as part of the International IDEA and Electoral Integrity Project working paper series, receive funding to make a presentation at a workshop on Citizens, Parties, and Electoral Contexts in Montreal in July 2014, and to present his paper at an international policymakers conference.

Higashijima was awarded a Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) grant in 2010 to conduct in-depth research in Central Asia, comparing Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to shed light on what political and economic consequences elections are likely to bring in authoritarian regimes.

He has also contributed an article to the Voices from the Sylff Community page of the Sylff website titled “Elections and Political Order: A Cross-National Analysis of Electoral Violence.”
This article helped lay the foundation for his award-winning paper.

We look forward to his further academic achievements and contributions to society.

2013-2 Awardees

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce the 19 recipients of SRA awards in the second round of fiscal 2013 (April 2013 to March 2014). We received the second highest number of applications from around the world since the program’s relaunch in 2011.

The applications were carefully screened for eligibility, the feasibility of the proposal, and the relevance of the proposed research to the applicant’s current academic pursuits, as well as for their relevance to social issues.

Congratulations to the winning applicants, and many wishes that the opportunity for research abroad turns out to be a fruitful one.

The names of the awardees and their home and the host institutions can be viewed here.

Call for Application FY2014(PDF)

The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to announce Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) ’s call for applications for fiscal 2014 (April 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015). The deadline for the first selection round is July 1(for those planning research abroad after August 18).

Click here for details of the announcement.

We look forward to receiving your applications!

19 Sylff fellows received SRA awards in the second selection round for fiscal 2013. Their names and photos are uploaded here. Since SRA was renewed in 2011, applicants from all over the world have been awarded grants of up to $5,000 to enrich their PhD research.

SRA provides a great opportunity for current or past Sylff fellowship recipients to conduct academic research related to their doctoral dissertation in a foreign country. We hope you will be able to become one of them.