The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that Kiyoteru Tsutsui has been appointed jointly as a Senior Fellow at FSI and Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology. He will begin at Stanford on July 1, 2020, and his appointment at FSI will be as the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). He will also be the director of APARC’s Japan Program.

Tsutsui was previously a professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, where he directed the Center for Japanese Studies and the Donia Human Rights Center. His work is centered on social movements, globalization, human rights, political/comparative sociology, and Japanese society. Tsutsui received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University, and earned an additional master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford’s sociology department in 2002.

“Kiyo Tsutsui is a world leader in the study of social movements, and especially the way that social movements in one place draw inspiration and ideas from social movements around the world,” said Michael Rosenfeld, professor and chair of sociology at Stanford. “There is a strong thread of internationalism in Kiyo’s work which teaches us important lessons about how actions in one place can have significant effects around the world years later. Stanford Sociology could not be more delighted in the time of this international health and financial crisis to be bringing such a visionary scholar to our campus.”

Gi-Wook Shin, the director of APARC, the William J. Perry Professor of Contemporary Korea, and William J. Perry Senior Fellow at FSI, added, “We are thrilled to welcome Kiyoteru back to Stanford. He is a first-rate scholar whose rigorous research is influencing multiple fields, including globalization, human rights, social movements, and Japan studies. He is also a proven academic leader with a record of excellence in program building, teaching, and mentorship. His vision and expertise will help advance APARC and our Japan Program, and I know he will be an invaluable addition to our larger university community.”  

Tsutsui’s publications include 20 peer-reviewed journal articles, his book Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan, a co-edited volume Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalizing World, and many other book chapters and articles. Rights Make Might received the 2019 Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Book Award from the American Sociological Association, in addition to the 2019 Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Award and the 2019 Most Outstanding Asia/Transnational Book Award from the American Sociological Association, and his journal articles have also received a number of awards from the American Sociological Association.

Tsutsui has taught courses on global human rights, social movements, human rights in the United Nations, globalization, research methods, and the sociology of Japan. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, and the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, among others.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to return to Stanford as a faculty member, a quarter-century after I first arrived at the Farm as a student,” said Tsutsui. “I look forward to contributing to the research, teaching, and social missions of the university by advancing my current projects on populism and democracy, minority rights in national constitutions, the campus human rights index, Japan’s foreign relations, and more. I’m excited to work with my colleagues toward scientific progress that leads to social change.”