Rate My Professor Takeharu Okubo

Takeharu Okubo is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Keio University Faculty of Law and also serves as Professor in the Graduate School of Law. He earned his undergraduate degree from Keio University Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science, in 1995. He completed a master’s degree in political science at Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1997 and received his Ph.D. in political science from the same institution in 2004. Prior to joining Keio University as associate professor in 2014, he held positions as assistant at Tokyo Metropolitan University Faculty of Law and as full-time lecturer and associate professor at Meiji University Faculty of Political Science and Economics.

Okubo’s research focuses on the history of Asian and Japanese political thought and comparative political thought, with particular emphasis on encounters with Dutch jurisprudence, political economy, and statistics in early modern and modern Japan. His major publications include the book 近代日本の政治構想とオランダ (University of Tokyo Press, 2010; expanded new edition, 2022), its English translation The Quest for Civilization: Encounters with Dutch Jurisprudence, Political Economy, and Statistics at the Dawn of Modern Japan (Brill, 2014), and a chapter titled “The Concept of Rights in Modern Japan” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory (Oxford University Press, 2020). He received the 政治研究櫻田會奨励賞 in 2012 for his book on modern Japanese political thought and the Netherlands. Okubo has contributed to international conferences and research projects on topics including Dutch studies in nineteenth-century Japan and the influence of European jurisprudence on modern Japan.