Biography

Hirotaka Fujibayashi received his PhD in International Relations and Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland. He holds an MA in International Studies and an LLB from the University of Tokyo. Previously, he was a visiting graduate student at UC San Diego (2023) and Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi (2016-2017).

Hirotaka’s research lies at the intersection of comparative politics and international relations, with a substantive focus on the politics and political economy of international migration and refugee movements. He carries out theory-guided empirical research on the above topics—both at the international level and in various national contexts—using an array of qualitative and quantitative methods.

At the EUI, Hirotaka has been working on a book project based on his PhD thesis and has continued developing original cross-national data on the de facto entitlement of refugee rights. As a second-year Max Weber Fellow, Hirotaka also plans to develop new research projects, one of which will look particularly into public attitudes towards immigration and migrant integration in selected democratic nations.

Hirotaka has experience teaching research design, statistical methods, and causal inference alongside seminars on refugee and migration studies at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. During his first year of the Fellowship, Hirotaka completed the Teaching Certificate Module with support from the MWP Team and the Westminster Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation in London, UK.

Mentor

• Martin Ruhs