Yoichiro Sato – Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Professor Yoichiro Sato holds a BA in Law from Keio University, an MA in International Studies from the University of South Carolina, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Hawaii. With a strong academic background, Professor Sato has developed expertise in international relations and political science, with a primary focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

Profile

Professor Sato has held significant academic and professional appointments, including positions at the University of Auckland and the U.S. Department of Defense’s Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS). At APCSS, he taught practitioners from diverse countries within and beyond the Asia-Pacific region, fostering a deep understanding of security dynamics and international cooperation. This experience enhanced his skills in delivering education in multicultural settings and training practitioners, contributing to his development as a globally engaged educator.

Currently, Professor Sato serves as a Professor at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University in Japan, where he teaches courses on Japanese foreign policy, International Relations of the Asia Pacific, Strategic Analysis and Decision-Making, and International Political Economy.

His work continues to reflect a commitment to advancing knowledge and practice in international relations, informed by extensive cross-cultural teaching and research in the Asia-Pacific context.

Teaching Philosophy

How would you describe your overarching philosophy or approach to teaching?
Every knowledge has practical implications, which drive the motivation for further learning. Connecting abstract theories and concepts to real-world situations, with a practical mindset in problem-solving, is the most effective way to teach.

What motivates you most about teaching in today’s global context?
The globalization of the learning environment through study abroad and student exchange programs, as well as online interactions and AI-powered translations, offers unprecedented opportunities to promote mutual understanding, which (hopefully) improves our ability to resolve conflicts.

How do you introduce students to the complexity of your field without overwhelming them?
Students should be overwhelmed initially. International relations are both complex and straightforward, but misguided ideas for solving problems often end up exacerbating the problems. Those who aspire to a leadership position must learn to appreciate the complexity, overcome the temptation to seek a simple answer, acquire the skills to disentangle the complex web of problems and their causes, and lead decision-making at each step.

In what ways do you encourage critical thinking and intellectual independence in your classroom?
Students are encouraged to freely present their ideas without dominating the discussion. They are expected to listen to others and respond fairly, basing their remarks on scientific logic and ethics, rather than on mere emotions.

How do you balance disciplinary structure with openness to new perspectives and contested ideas in IR?
Main theories in IR, like realism and liberalism, provide lenses to view the world, and main approaches, such as materialism (utilitarianism) and constructivism, guide research in the field. Complex problems in IR require a set of lenses and tools. Openness to multiple theories, approaches, and methods, combined with constant reality checks through empirical studies, ensures balanced learning.

Thematic Teaching Reflections

Foreign policy analysis
Approaching foreign policy analysis via both international system perspectives and domestic policymaking perspectives has been productive. A lack of prior knowledge about specific countries’ policymaking apparatuses is a challenge that must be overcome. The use of journalist accounts and practitioner memoirs in the reading material helps.

Geopolitics and strategic studies
Placing geopolitical perspectives in policymaking contexts often leads to a mixed approach to teaching that harnesses system-level analysis and policymaking processes.

Diplomacy and negotiations
As wars have mostly been “controlled” since the end of World War II, they can be studied within the broad framework of negotiations (bargaining). However, many IR programs do not teach negotiations. Negotiations can be most effectively taught through a combination of lectures and simulated exercises.

Complex diplomatic negotiations are team efforts, and simulating them does not tolerate “free-riding” students, who sabotage the group effort and learning by underperforming their assigned roles, especially in the preparatory stage.

Overall
I demand high rigor in their learning in three fronts: expanding the empirical base of their historical knowledge, sharpening their analytical skills through utilizing their theoretical knowledge, and acquiring policymaking skills at both domestic and international levels.

Students at more competitive institutions are often better prepared in their empirical knowledge base, but the gap is not insurmountable. Engaging students in active learning to teach the practical side of IR boosts their motivation to read more and self-learn diplomatic history.

Pedagogical Practice Reflections

Classroom Practices
I teach upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses in seminar-style discussions, guided through the required readings.

The use of movies as a quick supplement for the students’ historical knowledge can also work in combination with seminar discussions. Diplomatic simulations as a capstone exercise also work well.

Digital Pedagogy and Tools
Good, timely analytical articles are more easily accessible today thanks to internet-based platforms. Even some simulation exercises can be conducted on online platforms.

AI tools have been abused by students when take-home writing assignments carry a significant weight in the grading. However, AI tools also enable the speedy and effective collection of empirical knowledge, which students often lack. The rigorous learning objectives, with more weight on the students’ abilities to “apply” the knowledge and skills, do not necessarily conflict with the spread of AI tools.

Decolonizing the IR Curriculum
A teaching environment where “Westerners” are a small minority quite naturally corrects the built-in biases the discipline of IR has grown with. But, biases in other directions are also likely in any “national,” “ethnic,” and “gendered” IR. My role in the current highly diverse learning environment is that of a facilitator and/or a conductor, ensuring fair debates and their productive mutual engagement.

Regional Perspectives on Teaching
My research focus on and working in the most multi-cultural campus in the Asia Pacific naturally brings in Asian perspectives into my teaching and balances my training in the North American learning environment. My experience of teaching in a practitioner training institution also balances my “academic” training, which often neglects the practical side of IR.

Fostering an Inclusive and Courageous Classroom
Warming up students before engaging them in open discussions often takes a considerable amount of time. Cultural tendency varies between vocal and timid. Setting up both open and anonymous forums first and gradually connecting the discussions is one way to overcome this challenge. Letting students know they are still visible to the instructor even when the forum is anonymous should minimize abusive postings.

Classroom Example

I took a group of Japanese students to Korea and had them participate in a diplomatic simulation game on a hypothetical collapse of North Korea, involving a mixed group of students from Korea, Russia, China, and the US. The game was blessed with an added sense of reality, and students’ engagement was extremely high.

Linking Themes to Practice

Which themes or topics do you most often teach within International Relations, and why do they matter in your teaching?
Strategic Analysis and Decision Making
The course, in my view, is the connecting node between academic IR and IR practices. Graduating students will have a clearer sense of how their learning may relate to their possible careers.

How do these themes shape your course design, selection of readings, and teaching methods?
Participations and reflections on their participation in interactive simulations constitute the bulk of this course. Lectures are limited to teaching the basics of “applied” IR, such as framing, analysis, and negotiation skills, and are always accompanied by small exercises. Readings are kept to a minimum, focusing on supplementing the lectures and exercises.

What practices or experiences help you stay current in the field?
Academic conferences and institutional partnerships are valuable for networking and facilitating the production of research products. Research trips and practitioner dialogues are essential to stay current in the “policy-relevant” research domain.

Message to Current and Future Educators

IR should not be a mere hobby of scholars or students. Students must be encouraged to aspire to seek practitioner paths. Even though not everyone makes a diplomat, the field of IR is wide open for practical applications in other government sectors, international organizations, non-government organizations, think tanks, and businesses. Some will become academics, but the bulk will not. Hence, our teaching should not solely focus on training future scholars. A broader approach, with practitioner training in mind, is needed. Such an approach also makes IR more interesting to students.

My career path, which has kept one foot solidly in the “academic” IR world while seeking engagement with the “practitioner’s world,” has been productive. My research was informed by deep insights of the practitioners for a reality check. The harnessing of academic theories with actual policies has enriched my teaching.

Part of teaching is to motivate students to study independently. Without denying the utility of coercive incentives to encourage students to study, one must always strive to draw out the inner and positive motivations that drive students to learn. Interactive pedagogy and an emphasis on the practical applications of the subject matter are consistent with this objective. Casual catering to the demands of the bottom half of the students (especially when there are many non-IR major students) would almost inevitably disappoint the top-tier group of students, whose chances of becoming future academics or practitioner leaders are the greatest. Maintain the rigor and strive to improve the motivation of the lower-performing students patiently. I am still in a developmental stage in this regard.

It is essential not to make IR the exclusive domain of the elite. Leadership recruitment must remain wide-open to the general public if democracies are to survive and foreign policy is to be democratically controlled. The current state of foreign policy literacy among the general public is disappointingly low in many countries.

Students often explicitly remember only a few things from their interactions with their teacher. But it is those few memorable things that anchor their learning from the course. Keeping a positive learning environment is essential. There will never be a “perfect” day, but keep your most negative reflections to yourself and use them for improvements next time. Mildly negative reflections can be conveyed to the students in the form of “constructive suggestions.”

Leadership development in a globalizing world must include empathetic quality training. Sharing a problem to be solved requires this quality, and a multi-cultural learning environment is most conducive to this personal growth.

*** Authors may update their teachIR interviews to reflect new insights gained from experience, with this interview last updated on October 30, 2025.