Guibourg Delamotte

Guibourg Delamotte is a tenured Full Professor of Political Science and head of the Japanese Studies Department at the French Institute of Oriental Studies (Inalco), where she has been affiliated since 2006. She also teaches at Sciences Po Paris and holds international research fellowships at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), Temple University Japan, and the Japan Forum on International Relations (Tokyo). Her career spans Japanese defense policy, domestic politics, parliamentary institutions, and Indo-Pacific security dynamics.

• Education:
  • Law, University of Paris Panthéon Assas
  • Law, University of Oxford
  • Japanese (BA, MA), Inalco
  • Political Science, Sciences Po Paris
  • PhD in Political Studies, EHESS (2007, Highest Honours, Shibusawa-Claudel Award)
  • Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches, Sciences Po Paris (2022)

Her research focuses on Japanese domestic and foreign policy, parliamentary governance, defense modernization, and Indo-Pacific security. She has authored/co-edited eight books, including Le Japon, un leader discret (Eyrolles, 2023) and La Démocratie au Japon, singulière et universelle (ENS Ed., 2022), and over 20 journal articles and book chapters.

Recent publications emphasize Japan's strategic evolution in the Indo-Pacific, AUKUS implications, and democratic governance challenges. She examines security policy intersections with domestic politics, legal frameworks, and international alliances.

• Scientific Awards:
  • Shibusawa-Claudel Award for PhD dissertation
  • Highest Honours (PhD, EHESS)

Delamotte leads the French Research Institute on East Asia (IFRAE)’s program on Contemporary East Asia's trajectory. She serves on the National Academic Council’s Political Science Section (CNU, Section 4) and contributes to policy debates through academic and governmental institutions.