DISSERTATION PROJECT

Propagating Chinese Visions of Order: Investigation into the Dissemination of Chinese IR Theories

Chinese International Relations (IR) experts at universities and think tanks play a central role in shaping the perception of Chinese foreign policy within and outside China. Prominent among them are scholars engaged in the construction of “Chinese Schools of IR Theory,” a research program that explicitly draws on Chinese political thought and historical experience to challenge the dominance of Western IR theory and to conceptualize a ‘just’ global order.

My project examines how Chinese Schools of IR Theory construct and disseminate narratives of a future global order, interrogating the relationship between academic knowledge production and foreign policy. It asks what purpose the label “Chinese Schools of IR Theory” serves and which scholars it includes or excludes, what narratives of a future global order these scholars advance, how institutional settings and funding structures shape their theories, and how their narratives are strategically tailored and disseminated to domestic and international audiences.

Guided by Strategic Narrative Analysis, the project pays particular attention to the temporal dimension of these narratives — how past, present, and future are mobilized to legitimize a particular vision of global order. To investigate both the textual and material dimensions of this knowledge production, it combines Qualitative Content Analysis of scholarly publications, Discourse Network Analysis of academic and institutional ties, and Political Ethnography conducted during an extended fieldwork stay in Shanghai and Beijing.

My research contributes to the subtheme “Future Realizations of Sovereignty and Governance” of the Research Training Group, developing its interest in how intellectuals construct utopian and dystopian visions of a future regional and international order.

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Presentations

• “Propagating Chinese Visions of Order: Investigation into the Dissemination of Chinese IR Theories”. Preliminary Results & Proposal Workshop, Research Training Group GRK 2833 “East Asian Futures”, Bochum, Germany, Jul 3, 2026.

Funded Excursions

• ECPR Methods School “Political Ethnography: Method, Sensibility, Writing”, online, organized by the European Consortium for Political Research, Feb 16–20, 2026.