Kiyoteru Tsutsui

Kiyoteru Tsutsui is the Henri H. and Tomoye Takahashi Professor and Senior Fellow in Japanese Studies at Stanford University. He serves as Director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and the Japan Program at APARC, Co-Director of the Southeast Asia Program at APARC and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice, Executive Director of the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies, Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and Professor of Sociology.

Prior to joining Stanford in July 2020, Professor Tsutsui was Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan, where he also directed the Center for Japanese Studies and the Donia Human Rights Center.

Professor Tsutsui’s research lies at the intersection of political and comparative sociology, social movements, globalisation, human rights, and Japanese society. His scholarship examines how human rights norms, institutions, and instruments diffuse globally and shape domestic politics and social change. His research on the globalisation of human rights and its political consequences has been published in leading social science journals, including American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Social Problems, Journal of Peace Research, and Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Professor Tsutsui is the author of Rights Make Might: Global Human Rights and Minority Social Movements in Japan and co-editor of Corporate Social Responsibility in a Globalising World (with Alwyn Lim), and The Courteous Power: Japan and Southeast Asia in the Indo-Pacific Era with John Ciorciari. His work has been supported by numerous prestigious fellowships and grants, including awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation, the SSRC/CGP Abe Fellowship Program, and the Stanford Japan Studies Postdoctoral Fellowship. He has also received recognition from several sections of the American Sociological Association, including Global and Transnational Sociology, Human Rights, Asia and Asian America, Collective Behavior and Social Movements, and Political Sociology.

Professor Tsutsui earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Kyoto University and received an additional master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University in 2002.