Dr. Masaki Mizobuchi is an Assistant Professor in Faculty of Economics in Nagoya University of Commerce and Business since 2014. He received Ph.D. in Area Studies from Sophia University (Tokyo, Japan) in 2012, and B.A. in Cross Cultural Studies from Kobe University (Hyogo, Japan) in 2006.
Previously, he served as an Ernest May Fellow in History and Policy at Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in Harvard Kennedy School in 2013–2014, as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)/ Tokyo University of Foreign Studies in 2012–2013, and as a Research Fellow of the Japan Forum on International Relations (JFIR) in 2011.
His research interests include: Middle East politics; international security; military strategy; geopolitics; politics and security affairs in Syria and Lebanon; U.S. policy in the Middle East; and political Islam. He has written many articles on those subjects: e.g., “Why Does the Syrian Crisis Drag On? Opposition Groups and the Geopolitics of Conflict,” Journal of International Security, Vol. 41, No. 4, March 2014; “The Syrian Crisis and Lebanon in Turmoil: Escalating Power Politics, Social Break down and the Surge of Salafi-Jihadi,” Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 517, June 2013; “The Myth of the 'New Phoenicians': Are Lebanese People Really Cosmopolitans?” Mediterranean Review, Vol. 6, No. 1, June 2013 (with Yutaka Takaoka).
He has been visiting the Middle East―especially Syria and Lebanon―many times to conduct field research since 2006.
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