Yibo Sun is a comparative politics scholar with a focus on Japan. He works on democratic institutions, such as the degree of control the assembly has over the executive in a parliamentary system (the ease of passing no-confidence votes). His Master thesis focused on system of government changes in democracies, such as Papua New Guinea’s deparliamentisation process and Czech Republic’s shift from indirect to direct presidential elections 2011-13. Yibo also works on politicians’ campaign behaviour, such as factors that push politicians to deviate from the party line during campaigns. He is notably working at LAC on this specific topic in the context of nuclear power politics in Japanese general election campaigns.
Yibo grew up in Canada and studied economics in France. Then, he worked in Japan for five years. During his time in Japan, Yibo discovered his real passion in comparative politics and decided to enter academia. Yibo is now pursuing a PhD in political science at Central European University in Austria.
Yibo’s main hobbies are tennis and cycling. He cycled from Kobe to Tokyo multiple times, as well as between Vienna and Bratislava. This is why Yibo particularly enjoys working at Leiden to take advantage of the wonderful Dutch cycling infrastructure.