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.

The articles uploaded on the Sylff website in 2013 have been compiled into the February 2014 edition of Voices from the Sylff Community. The booklet contains 16 articles on such topics as democratic governance, international relations, war and history, and musical expression, representing the diverse and global nature of the Sylff community. The Tokyo Foundation is pleased to have received many contributions from fellows around the world last year.

One feature of Voices 2014 is a section on SRA & SLI. More than two years have passed since Sylff Research Abroad (SRA) was re-launched in 2011 to support the activities of doctoral candidates, and it is now bearing fruit, as demonstrated by the many articles based on SRA research in this edition. There are also two pages of photos at the back of the booklet featuring the many outstanding fellows whom members of the Tokyo Foundation had the pleasure of meeting in 2013.

The booklet can also be downloaded as a PDF file here.

We Want to Hear Your “Voice”

We are always eager to receive YOUR contributions to the Sylff site. Reports of your academic or social action achievements should be submitted to the Tokyo Foundation at leadership[at]tkfd.or.jp.

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Voices from the Sylff Community
February 2014

CONTENTS

Mihoko Sakurai, second from right, with other Keio Sylff fellows and Tokyo Foundation directors

“Sustaining Life during the Early Stages of Disaster Relief with a Frugal Information System: Learning from the Great East Japan Earthquake” was co-authored by Mihoko Sakurai, a Sylff fellow at Keio University in 2013–14, and points to the need for municipal governments to build disaster-resilient communication systems.

This paper, based on field research into the ICT systems of local governments, notes that power outages and the resultant loss of communication and processing capability severely constrained recovery efforts in many municipalities, hampering attempts by supporting organizations to collect and share information.

A “frugal information system” built around cell phones, placing minimal stress on already burdened systems, is suggested as a solution to handle the early stages of disaster relief.

Sakurai is now assistant professor at the Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance and has been selected to receive a special Research Fellowship for Young Scientists from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science starting in April 2014.

In June 2012, Sakurai published “Municipal Government ICT in 3.11 Crisis: Lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Crisis” in Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2012-14. This was a structured field survey of ICT divisions in 13 municipalities devastated by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which revealed a lack of ICT business continuity plans, the importance a comprehensive data backup policy, and the importance of securing power and network supply.

In addition to these articles in English, she has also co-authored a book in Japanese pointing to the importance of enhancing ICT networks among municipalities. The third anniversary of the 9.0-magnitude Tohoku quake is soon approaching. We hope that Sakurai’s research will help mitigate damage and facilitate rescue and recovery efforts following future natural disasters, in whatever country they may occur.

SYLFF SUPPORT PROGRAMS

The Tokyo Foundation announced the re-launch of “Sylff Leadership Initiatives (SLI)” and “Sylff Fellows Forum for Global Dialogue” (starting in 2015). Four fellows were selected as SLI recipients, and the report of the first recipient's seminar can be read here. In addition, 22 Sylff Research Abroad awardees were named in 2013. All awardees and the reports (by fiscal year) can be read here. We look forward to receiving your applications in 2014!

SYLFF WORLDWIDE

The University of Athens celebrated the 20th anniversary and Jadavpur University celebrated “10 Glorious Years” of their respective Sylff programs in 2013.

Many Sylff fellows sent news of their activities: Jory Vinikour was nominated for a Grammy Award; a Sylff Chamber Music Seminar Concert was held in Vienna; Julia Zulus participated in Rainbow 21 International Suntory Hall Debut Concert in Tokyo; Jordan Matsudaira was appointed senior economist in the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) for US President Barack Obama; Bryan Matthew Thompson delivered a presentation at the Third International Conference on Government Performance Management and Leadership at Waseda University in Tokyo; Itamar Zorman made his recital debut in Tokyo; and the Ateneo de Manila University has made a call for donations and a relief campaign is being promoted by Sherilyn Siy Tan for victims of Typhoon Haiyan. The Tokyo Foundation offers its deepest condolences to the people in the Philippines over the devastating loss of life and property from this super typhoon.

SYLFF@TOKYO

We were delighted to welcome many members of the Sylff community to our office in Tokyo this year. On July 10, the Tokyo Foundation hosted the first-ever gathering of Sylff fellows and SSC members at our office; 20 Sylff fellows and SSC members attended the gathering. Articles detailing the visits can be accessed by clicking on the names/links below. We hope to welcome many more visitors in 2014, so please be sure to contact us when you have plans to visit Tokyo!

Ilona Dubra (Sylff fellow, University of Latvia), Warren Ang (Sylff fellow, INSEAD), David Panzl (assistant professor, University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna), Liu Yajun (Sylff fellow, Nanjing University), Masaaki Higashijima,(Sylff fellow, Waseda University), Yuki Kakiuchi (conductor), Takehiro Kurosaki (deputy director, Pacific Islands Centre).

In December 2014, the Tokyo Foundation will host the Sylff Administrators Meeting in Tokyo. Details will be announced shortly.

Wishing You Peace and Joy in the New Year!

(on the back row from left to right) Tomoko, Takashi Suzuki(Director), Akiko

(on the middle row) Eriko, Tetsuya

(on the front row) Yumi, Yoko, Keita, Mari Suzuki(Director)