Professor Keiichi Kubo received his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2007 and has been a faculty member at Waseda University since 2008. His research focuses on democratization, elections, ethnic politics, civil war, transitional justice, and reconciliation, with a regional specialization in the former Yugoslavia. He is the author of The State Torn Apart: Democratization and Ethnic Problems in the Former Yugoslavia and has published widely in both Japanese and English. His work has appeared in Europe-Asia Studies, Ethnopolitics, and edited volumes from Ashgate and Routledge on secession, party politics, and post-conflict governance.