J. A. A. Stockwin received a degree at Oxford in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1959 and a doctorate in International Relations from the Australian National University in Canberra in 1965. He taught in the Department of Political Science at the Australian National University until 1981; and was Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford from 1982 to 2003. Stockwin remains active in researching and writing on the politics of Japan.