Ryo Kiridori

Ryo Kiridori is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, where he focuses on the fields of international relations and comparative politics. He is also a research fellow at the National Institute for Defense Studies, a Tokyo-based think tank affiliated with Japan’s Ministry of Defense, which he joined in 2016.

His research interests fall within two areas: foreign policy analysis and security studies. The former covers the study of decision groups and bureaucratic politics while the latter includes strategy and deterrence, both nuclear and conventional. Given his academic and practical backgrounds, he is very interested in research agendas that bridge theory and policy. His current project for doctoral thesis examines the evolution of Japanese defense policy over time. By consulting bureaucratic politics model and historical institutionalism, the study aims to explain the timing, choice, and pattern of policy change in Japan and beyond.

He holds a BA in political science from the University of New Brunswick, where he was awarded the Richard B. Hatfield Prize in Political Science for the highest academic average in the field, and an MSc in international relations from London School of Economics and Political Science.