Reo Matsuzaki is a scholar of statebuilding. In his book, Statebuilding by Imposition: Resistance and Control in Colonial Taiwan and the Philippines (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), he examines the role societal intermediaries play in the construction of modern states through a comparative analysis of Japanese colonization of Taiwan and the U.S. colonization of the Philippines. In his current project, he challenges dominant understandings of how modern states are forged through an analysis of Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912).

As in his research, the comparative method is the underlying approach of Matsuzaki’s courses. Students will discuss why various historical events occurred as they did, and whether alternative outcomes were possible, by comparing similar as well as dissimilar cases. Through classroom discussion, presentations, and written assignments, students will learn how to dissect social scientific arguments, challenge existing accounts of historical interpretation, and evaluate the merits of theoretically founded policy prescriptions.

He was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, where the managed the Governance Project, before joining the Trinity faculty in 2013. He is an Associate-in-Research at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and Program on U.S- Japan Relations, as well as at Yale University’s Council of East Asian Studies.

Publications:

• "State Building Amid Resistance: Administrative Intermediaries and the Making of Colonial Taiwan," Polity, forthcoming
• Statebuilding by Imposition: Resistance and Control in Colonial Taiwan and the Philippines (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2019)
• "State-Building and Counterinsurgency Campaigns: Lessons from Colonial Taiwan," in Expert Voices on Japan: Security, Economic and Social, and Foreign Policy Recommendations, ed. Arthur Alexander (Washington, D.C.: The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation, 2018): 107-22
• "Placing the Colonial State in the Middle: The Comparative Method and the Study of Empires," Comparativ 19.2 (2009): 107-119

Work in Progress:

• "Surviving Decolonization: Explaining Colonial-Postcolonial Institutional Continuity in the Philippines" (article manuscript in progress)

Select Presentations:

• "Why Colonial Institutions Survived Decolonization: The Case of the Philippines," Conference on State Capacity and Public Goods Provision, Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Princeton University, April 5, 2019. Also presented to the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Denver, March 22, 2019
• "State-Building and Counterinsurgency Campaigns: Lessons from Colonial Taiwan and the Philippines," invited talk, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C., June 6, 2018
• "Imposing Institutions: The Case of Public Education in the Philippines under U.S. Rule," New England Political Science Association, Portsmouth, April 20, 2018
• "Administered Communities: The Making of a Strong State in Taiwan under Japanese Rule," Social Science History Association Annual Conference, Chicago, November 19, 2016
• "Kokka kensetsu to shokuminchi shugi: Beihi, Nichitai tochi no hikaku [State-building and Colonialism: A Comparison of Philippines under American Rule and Japan under Japanese Rule]," invited talk, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan, January 9, 2015
• "The Institutional Origin of State-building Failure," American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, August 29, 2013
• "The Dilemma of 'Accountable' State-building: Establishing Education Institutions in Colonial Taiwan versus the Philippines in the Early Twentieth Century," Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Annual Meeting, Hartford, June 29, 2012
• "Forging Police Institutions under Foreign Occupation: A Dilemma for Democratic Governance," International Studies Association Annual Convention, San Diego, April 3, 2012