Research

Nexus of IR & comparative
My research interests lie at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics, with a focus on Japan. My doctoral dissertation, "Building Parents of the Next Generation: Japanese Family Policy Responses to the Declining Birthrate," found that Japan has attempted to stem a declining fertility rate by combining policies to promote work-life balance for young families with initiatives to prepare young people for parenthood. Their family values initiatives attempt to provide children and youth with the material and psychological wherewithal necessary for marriage and parenthood. My theoretical approach, grounded in the new institutionalism, explains the divergence of Japanese family policy from international norms using historical and discursive analysis. I find that Japanese family policymakers are selecting policy options from domestic debates about family and social breakdown seen as endemic to advanced industrial countries, with political actors casting family values initiatives as “normal” state responses to seemingly inevitable processes of national development.
My research on Internet governance pertains to topics such as managing the growth of the Internet, particularly through development and deployment of Internet protocol version 6 (especially in the Asia-Pacific), diffusion of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), and the social construction of authority for the technical community in global Internet governance.
My published research includes:
My research on Internet governance pertains to topics such as managing the growth of the Internet, particularly through development and deployment of Internet protocol version 6 (especially in the Asia-Pacific), diffusion of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), and the social construction of authority for the technical community in global Internet governance.
My published research includes:
- Liv Coleman, "Will Japan 'Lean In' to Gender Equality?" US-Japan Women's Journal (2016)
- Liv Coleman, "Next Generation Internet Policy in Japan, China, and India," Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies (2014) (Op-ed version in the Australian National University's Crawford School of Public Policy's online Policy Forum, first published in their magazine Advance)
- Liv Coleman, "`We Reject: Kings, Presidents, and Voting: Internet Community Autonomy in Managing the Growth of the Internet," Journal of Information Technology & Politics (2013)
- Michael Barnett and Liv Coleman, "Designing Police: Interpol and the Study of Change in International Organizations," International Studies Quarterly (2005)