Chinese Scholars and Think Tanks' Constructions of China's National Interest

Offering a new way of assessing and explaining Chinese foreign policy experts' influence, understanding the environment in which they operate, and suggestions on how to analyse official foreign policy statements.

This book offers a systematic assessment of how International Relations scholars in mainland China and analysts at Chinese foreign policy think tanks influence the construction of China's national interest. The detailed analysis shows how proximity to the state and the state's signaled demand for expertise facilitate and constrain influence and puts forward a new approach for identifying influence by applying frame analysis to 150 foreign policy statements and combining it with quantitative content analysis of 4000 expert publications. Offering a new way of assessing and explaining Chinese foreign policy experts' influence, understanding the environment in which they operate, and providing suggestions on how to analyze official foreign policy statements, this volume will be of interest to scholars of Chinese foreign policy and anyone working on expert influence in non-democratic regimes.

Autorentext

Sabine Mokry is a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg. In addition, she is an associate at the German Institute for Global and Areas Studies (GIGA). Her work examines how domestic factors shape China's foreign and security policy.

Inhalt

1. Introduction

Argument in brief

Contributions

Data & methods

Plan of the book

2. Theory and Empirical Strategy

Experts' ideas and China's national interest

Debates about China's national interest

Understanding China's national interest as constructed

Experts' ideas and the construction of China's national interest

The intervening role of domestic structures

Experts' proximity to the state

The state's signaled demand for expertise

Examining experts' influence

Strategies for addressing challenges

Empirical implementation

Conclusions

3. Foreign Policy-Making in China and Chinese Experts

Foreign policy-making in China

The outer circle of foreign policy-making in China

Think Tanks

Scholars

The mechanisms of Chinese experts' influence

Think Tanks

Scholars

Xi Jinping's tightened control

Conclusions

4. Experts' Influence on the Construction of China's National Interest

Overarching changes in the construction of China's national interest

Shifts in policy substance

Quantitative analysis of scholars' and think tanks' influence

Influenced policy shifts: an overview

Conclusions

5. Distant Experts' Influence

Distant think tanks' influence on the construction of China's national interest

Distant think tanks' characteristics

High demand for expertise signaled by the state

How distant analysts shaped policy shifts

Distant scholars' influence on the construction of China's national interest

Distant scholars' characteristics

High demand for expertise signaled by the state

How distant scholars shaped policy shifts

Conclusions

6. Close Experts' Influence

Shifts in the demand for expertise signaled by the state

Close think tanks' influence on the construction of China's national interest

Close think tanks' characteristics

How close analysts shaped policy shifts

Close scholars' influence on the construction of China's national interest

Close scholars' characteristics

How close scholars shaped policy shifts

7. Conclusions

Experts' influence on the construction of China's national interest

Scholarly implications

Implications for understanding China's foreign policy

Implications for researching experts and policy

Limitations and further research

Policy implications