Mr. Akihiko Tanaka is President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Before assuming the present post, he was Professor of International Politics at the Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies and at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo. Most recently he was Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2011-2012), Executive Vice President of the University of Tokyo (2009-2011), and Director of the Division of International Affairs of the University of Tokyo (2008-2010).
He obtained his B.A. in International Relations at the University of Tokyo in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1981.
Mr. Tanaka’s specialties include theories of international politics, contemporary international relations in East Asia, and Japan’s foreign policy. He has numerous books and articles in Japanese and English including Posuto kuraishisu no sekai (The Post-Crisis World) (Tokyo: Nihon keizai shimbun shuppansha, 2009), Ajia no nakano Nippon (Japan and International Politics in Asia) (Tokyo: NTT Shupan, 2007), and the New Middle Ages: The World System in the 21st Century (Tokyo: The International House of Japan, 2002).
He received the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his academic achievements in 2012.