Expanding our teaching team in Japan

By Olivia Wenholz

We’re growing our innovative dual degree program with Ritsumeikan University by adding a new lecturer to our teaching team in Japan. Dr Nikolay Murashkin is delighted to have taken up the new position, teaching the Bachelor of Asia Pacific Affairs (BAPA). He was attracted by the dynamic new program, as he likes the Asia-Pacific focus and is interested in the Japan-Australia relationship. The development of the BAPA program reflects the further deepening of ties between Australia and Japan, with students developing cultural fluency across both countries and becoming well-placed to continue advancing the relationship.

Nikolay is a scholar of contemporary Japanese foreign policy and international relations in Asia Pacific. He has previously contributed to the Australia-Japan dialogues as a researcher, and his research interests include the international political economy of the Asia Pacific and development. He is interested in the contemporary roles of developmental states in the international political economy amid changing market forces and regional power dynamics – for example Japan, Korea, and China, where developmental state models have been prominent.

He is keen to do further research into Japanese foreign policy and Japan’s changing role in the region and is curious about Japan’s relations and its evolving “network power” with different powers in Asia-Pacific and the Global South. He says that while a power shift is underway in the region, he sees Japan’s role not as shrinking or being relegated, but as an interesting case of adaptive power and adjustment. Out of the 200 top economies in the world, Japan is still in the top 4, and practices “quiet leadership” in an entrepreneurial, soft and often collective way. He is also interested in the roles concessional lending and experience-sharing play in Japan’s development cooperation, including its key implementation arm – Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

As lecturer, Nikolay is teaching the following courses:

• The Origins of Political Order in Asia
• Australian Security in the Asian Century
• Introduction to International Security Studies
• Humanitarianism: Principles, Politics and Practice
   

He is thrilled to have joined our teaching team as he says …

ANU is a great fit for me, as an academic home. The Bell School has strong expertise in International Relations, International Political Economy, and the Asia Pacific region.

He also loves how international and culturally diverse the cohort of students at RU is – with students having mixed backgrounds from all over the wider Asia Pacific region, such as East and South Asia, North America and the Pacific.

Teaching the BAPA program matches my scholarly interests beautifully, as the degree is multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral – covering International Relations, Political Economy and Asia-Pacific Studies.

Our dual degree students can consider themselves lucky to be learning from a prize-winning lecturer - in 2013, Nikolay won the 1st prize of the Japan Foundation and the Association of Japanologists in his native Russia for the best academic paper on Japanese politics by a junior scholar.

Nikolay also brings to the role a wealth of experience in the private sector, as well as academic rigour. After completing his Masters in International Business, Finance and Strategy at Sciences Po Paris and an exchange year at Waseda University in Tokyo, Nikolay worked as an analyst in a London-based corporate and investment bank for two years. He also spent half a year as an intern in the Global Communications Department at Nissan, Tokyo, where he gained a working command of the Japanese language, as he conducted his work in a mix of English, Japanese, French, and Russian.

Nikolay earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge with a dissertation focusing on contemporary Japanese foreign policy in Central Asia, which covered various aspects of political economy, finance, infrastructure, and resources. He developed his thesis into the monograph "Japan and the New Silk Road. Diplomacy, Development, and Connectivity", published in 2020.

Before moving to Japan, Nikolay has lived in Brisbane and Sydney, working as a course convenor at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland and sessional academic at Griffith University’s School of Government and International Relations, as well as a Visiting Fellow at Griffith Asia Institute. In terms of industry experience, Nikolay has worked for think-tanks and communications agencies, as well as at Australian and international mining engineering consultancies.

In addition, he is currently a visiting fellow at the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development, where he previously worked as a research fellow from 2020 – 2023, before joining ANU.  Since October last year he has been based in Osaka, on the Ibaraki campus of Ritsumeikan University, making it a total of over 6 years (so far) that he has lived in Japan, across multiple trips, including a Japan Foundation Fellowship at Waseda University.

Welcome to the team Nikolay!

For more information on the double degree program see our website