Political Science, Computational Social Science, Public Administration
Presidency, Bureaucracy, Political Economy, Japan, United States
Machine Learning (Natural Language Processing), Causal Inference, Formal Models
2023-Curr. Assistant Professor (Tenured) at Nagoya University of Commerce and Business, Department of Economics.
2022 - 2023. Project Researcher at the University of Tokyo Graduate School for Humanities and Sociology
2019 - 2022 Research Fellow for Japan Society for Promotion of Science
2022 Young Visiting Fellow for Japan Instittute of International Affairs
2020- 2021 Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley’s Center for Japanese Studies Website (August 2020 - June 2021)
・Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo’s Graduate School for Law and Politics (September 2024)
・Master from University of Tokyo Graduate School for Law and Politics (March 2019)
・Bachelor from University of Tokyo Faculty of Law (March 2017)
3. Saito, Takaharu. "Unilateral Power for Saving Lives: Presidential Policymaking under COVID-19." Presidential Studies Quarterly,55(3): e70003. (Working Paper , December 2024)
2. Saito, Takaharu. 2024. "Female Legislators Decrease Epidemic Deaths." Discover Public Health, 21: 39. Article
1. Saito, Takaharu. 2024. “Legislative Incapacity and Underreporting of COVID-19 Mortality,” Preventive Medicine Reports, 41: 102694. Article
3 Saito, Takaharu. 2023. “The Transformation of the President's Use of Interagency Coordination in the 1960s-80s.” Pacific and American Studies. 23. 73-89. Article
2 Saito, Takaharu. 2022. “Sentiment Analysis of the Economic Report of the President in the United States.” The Japanese Journal of Behaviormetrics, 49, pp. 197-206. Article Replication
1 Saito, Takaharu. 2022. “Policymaking in Crisis: Interagency Coordination or Whitehouse-led Coordination.” Public Administration Review Quarterly, 179, p. 45-60.
(Summary) Historical scholars debated whether crises enhanced presidential power, thereby causing further crises. However , empirical research on how the public evaluates presidential unilateralism during crises remains limited. Using an unexpected event during survey design (UESD), this study demonstrates that the effect of natural disasters on public support for unilateralism is contingent on executive approval and presidentialist perspectives. When individuals approve of the president's performance and support the president's independent legislative authority, natural disasters increase their support for presidential unilateralism. These findings suggest that public opposition can act as a check against the concentration of presidential power during crises.
(Summary) The relationship between political fragmentation and the governmental spending attracts academic interests, and the scholars assume that the fragmentation leads to the increase of both pork barrel and total expenditure. In this study, we theoretically show that under fiscal pressure, pork-to-pork compromise between the executive and opposition-led speaker, the speaker from a different party than the executive, cost the expansion of the total spending. Then, with an innovative dataset, we implement a Regression Discontinuity (RD) design to analyze 4,898 speaker elections within 790 city governments in Japan, which confirms the theory. The result suggests that the pork barrel politics costs the budgetary expansion under fiscal pressure.
(Summary) Unilateral action constitutes a fundamental aspect of policy formulation within the executive branch. Prior analyses have predominantly focused on the role of institutional dynamics, such as conflicts with legislative and judicial branches, in shaping executive strategies. Our study elucidates that governors in the United States with a background as chief executive officers (CEO governors) exhibit a higher propensity towards unilateral policymaking than their non-CEO counterparts, as evidenced by a regression discontinuity design (RD) analysis. These findings underscore the critical influence of an executive’s professional background on the inclination towards executive unilateralism, suggesting a more significant effect than traditionally anticipated.
Annaka, Susumu, Takaharu Saito, Junpei Suzuki, and Gento Kato. "Japanese Attitudes toward Pandemic Triage: A Replication of Knotz et al. (2021)" (Data analysis)
Takikawa, Hiroki, Zeyu Lyu, Zhemeng Xie, Saito, Takaharu, Aguru Ishibashi. "Happiness is not Mutual: Exploring Differences in the Perception of Well-being with Words-association Network" (Presented at IC2S2)
Saito, Takaharu. "Controlling Bureaucracy as Congress Demands?: President's Use of Signing Statement and Federal Agencies" (Presented at APSA 2022)
Saito, Takaharu and Chika Rosenbaum. "Quantitative Text Analysis of How to Teach American Political History in Japanese Colleges"
Saito, Takaharu and Yuta Kobayashi. "Determinants on Cabinet Decisionmaking in Japan"
Saito, Takaharu and Yuta Kobayashi. "Cabinet Decisionmaking as Legislative Mandate"
Saito, Takaharu and Tak-Yin Hui. "Organizational Cost of Corporate Political Activities"
Takaharu Saito. 2021. "CULCON: A Concise History: The Interchange of Intellectuals between Japan and the US after WW2”. Research for Japan Foundation and United States-Japan Conference on Cultural & Educational Interchange.
2024 Graduate School for Law and Politics, University of Tokyo, Special Award for Outstanding Dissertation
2020 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Overseas Challenge Program for Young Researcher
2019 Japan Society for Promotion of Science, Doctoral Research Fellowship (DC1)
2017 Seiunjuku Fundation, Seiunjuku Yasuhiro Nakasone Awards (Excellence)
2025-2026 Murata Science and Education Foundation, Research Grant (¥1,260,000)
2023-2024 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up (¥2,800,000)
2023/7 Japanese Association of American Studies, Travel Grant (APSA2023) (¥150,000)
2022/9 American Studies Foundation, Travel Grant for International Conference APSA 2020 (¥100,000)
2019-2022 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science , Kakenhi Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows 19J21712 (¥3,100,000)
2019-2022 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science , Research Fellowship for Young Scientists (DC1) (¥7,200,000)
2021 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Overseas Challenge Program for Young Researchers (¥1,400,000)
2020/5 American Studies Foundation, Travel Grant for International Conference APSA 2020 (¥100,000) (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
2020/3 Computational Social Science Japan Workshop 2020, Visiting Grant for Young scholars (¥65,000)
2020/3 American Studies Foundation, Travel Grant for International Conference MPSA 2020 (¥100,000) (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
Takaharu Saito. "Does Business Experience Lead to More Unilateral Policymaking? Evidence from CEO Governors in the United States." Japan Society for Quantitative Political Science. January 2025
Takaharu Saito. "Does Divided Government Control Unilateral Policymaking? Evidence from Chair Elections." American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 2023. Los Angeles, USA. September 2023.
Takaharu Saito. "Does Divided Government Control Unilateral Policymaking? Evidence from Chair Elections." Japan Politics Online Seminar Series. Online. August 2023.
Takikawa, Hiroki, Zeyu Lyu, Zhemeng Xie, Saito, Takaharu, Aguru Ishibashi. "Exploring multi-dimensional concept of well-being thorough geometry of culture approach." IC2S2 2023. Copenhagen, Denmark. June 2023.
Takaharu Saito. "Controlling Bureaucracy as Congress Demands?" American Political Science Association Annual Meeting 2022. Montreal, Canada. September 2022.
Takaharu Saito. "Controlling Bureaucracy as Congress Demands?" Japan Society for Quantitative Political Science Summer Meeting 2022. Tokyo, Japan. July 2022.
Takaharu Saito. "Presidential Control on Bureaucracy and Interagency Coordination in the United States." International Political Science Association the 26th World Congress of Political Science. Lisbon, Portugal. July 2021. (Cancelled due to COVID-19)
Takaharu Saito. "Presidential Control on Bureaucracy and Interagency Coordination" Midwest Political Science Association, 2020 Annual Meeting. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.. April 2020. (Cancelled due to COVID-19)