Rikio Inouye is a Prize Fellow in the Social Sciences and a Ph.D. candidate on the 2025-2026 job market specializing in race, religion, and international relations. His job market paper examines how racial and religious identities fundamentally alter public support for countries in conflict, revealing critical mechanisms through which identity-based biases shape foreign policy preferences and international solidarity. Job Market Paper Draft.

His research employs survey experiments to uncover how racial and religious identities influence public attitudes toward other people and countries, with profound implications for democratic solidarity, foreign policy formation, and international cooperation. His work stands at the frontier of understanding how identity-based biases operate in global politics.

He has forthcoming research at International Studies Quarterly (ISQ) that won the Best Paper in Foreign Policy Award from the American Political Science Association. He also has an additional conditional acceptance at ISQ.

Other strands of work examine democratic backsliding, attitudes toward allied migrants, and democratic solidarity in conflict. These articles have invitations to revise and resubmit at the American Political Science Review (APSR), the American Journal of Political Science (AJPS), and International Organization (IO). Drafts and other working papers are available on his website or CV.

Rikio is deeply committed to active and engaged learning. He received Princeton University's prestigious George Kateb Teaching Award and the McGraw Center Exemplar Mentor Award in 2024. He has organized pedagogy workshops for fellow graduate students and has been nominated twice for university-wide teaching awards.

Rikio graduated summa cum laude with highest honors in political science from UC Berkeley and is a proud alumnus of the Japan Exchange Teaching (JET) Program.