Kota Watanabe

Kota Watanabe is a political scientist and Visiting Scholar at NYU Wagner. His research focuses on the political economy of civil wars, humanitarian care, and transnational organized crime in contemporary Southeast Asia, with particular emphasis on Myanmar. His current work is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Overseas Research Fellowship. 

His research on the political economy of online scamming in Myanmar’s borderlands was published in Critical Asian Studies (2025). Methodologically, his expertise lies in ethnography-informed qualitative research, including informal interviews and participant observation conducted in politically sensitive environments.

Prior to entering academia, Dr. Watanabe served as a Japanese diplomat specializing in Myanmar and is fluent in Burmese. He has extensive experience advising governments, development and humanitarian agencies, and private-sector organizations in Japan and internationally. He earned his Ph.D. in Development Studies from SOAS University of London in 2025.