Dr. Yuhki Tajima is Director of Asian Studies and Associate Professor of Asian Studies and Political Economy in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He has consulted extensively for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme and has worked with governments in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Timor-Leste on issues of peacebuilding and development.

His research examines insurgencies, communal violence, ethnic politics, the political economy of development, criminal gangs, and smuggling with a particular focus on Southeast Asia. His current book project entitled “How Peace Prevails: Insurgent Cohesion and Fragmentation in Indonesia and the Philippines” examines the peace processes in Aceh, Indonesia and the southern Philippines to explain why some peace agreements succeed, while others fail. Other ongoing projects examine the effects of border policies on smuggling and migration, the foreign policies of ASEAN states in the South China Sea, and Japanese and US peacebuilding policies in Southeast Asia.

Dr. Tajima is the author of The Institutional Origins of Communal Violence: Indonesia’s Transition from Authoritarian Rule (Cambridge University Press 2014). He has also published peer-reviewed articles in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among other academic and policy outlets.

He has been a fellow of the Centre for International Security at the Hertie School in Berlin, an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a Guest Scholar at Kyoto University’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies. He holds a Ph.D in Public Policy and an M.P.A in International Development from Harvard University and a B.A. in Physics from Swarthmore College.

Education

Harvard University - Ph.D.
Harvard University - M.P.A.
Swarthmore College - B.A.