Photo/Illutration Political scientist Makoto Iokibe (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Makoto Iokibe, a political scientist who led Japan’s recovery effort after the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and served as president of the National Defense Academy, has died. He was 80.

He passed away from acute aortic dissection on March 6.

Iokibe was born in Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, in 1943, as a son of Shinjiro Iokibe, an economics professor at Kobe University.

He studied Japanese political and diplomatic history under Masamichi Inoki at Kyoto University, and learned realist political science from Masataka Kosaka.

After serving as an associate professor at Hiroshima University and a visiting researcher at Harvard University, Iokibe became a professor at Kobe University in 1981.

As a scholar, he offered a fresh, broader perspective on Japanese political and diplomatic history, particularly on the outbreak of the Pacific War, the U.S. occupation policy after the war and the 1951 peace treaty with the Allied powers.

Iokibe mentored many notable scholars, including Ryuji Hattori at Chuo University and Masaya Inoue at Keio University.

He also served as chairman of the Japanese Political Science Association and was the president of the Prefectural University of Kumamoto and the University of Hyogo.

Iokibe advised Prime Ministers Junichiro Koizumi and Yasuo Fukuda on foreign and security policies, particularly Japan-U.S. relations. He served as president of the National Defense Academy from 2006 to 2012.

In 1995, Iokibe was at his home in Nishinomiya when the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. He actively contributed to the recovery efforts and later served as chairman of the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute, dedicated to preserving and sharing the lessons learned from the disaster.

When the Great East Japan Earthquake hit in 2011, he was appointed as chairman of the Reconstruction Design Council by Prime Minister Naoto Kan. He assumed the additional role of chairman of the Reconstruction Promotion Council the following year.

A prolific author, Iokibe wrote several award-winning books including “The U.S. Occupation Policy of Japan,” “The Pacific War and Postwar Japan” and “The Occupation Period: The Prime Ministers’ New Japan”

The Japanese government also honored him as a Person of Cultural Merit in 2011.

Related News