

Sabine Mokry
PhD Candidate, Leiden University
Visiting Researcher, GIGA Hamburg
My research focuses on China’s foreign policy, especially how domestic factors shape it. In my dissertation, I examine when, how, and how much Chinese think tankers and scholars influence the construction of China’s national interest.
MY BACKGROUND
2016-2019
Research Associate
Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS), Berlin
As part of the team working on China's foreign relations, I focused on the domestic sources of China’s foreign policy and monitored Chinese activities on the African continent. I published policy reports on Chinese concepts for the global order and analyzed the restructuring of China’s foreign policy apparatus.
2012-2015
M.A. International Relations and China Studies
Free University Berlin
During the two master’s programs and my work as a research assistant, I developed a solid theoretical and methodological background for investigating questions around China’s foreign policy, its global role and the domestic factors that shape it.
2007-2011
B.A. Governance and Public Policy
University of Passau
My bachelor's program with semesters abroad in the UK and Switzerland introduced me to the logics of political science and neighboring disciplines. A two-year long, extra-curricular program on conflict and cooperation in Asia offered by the German National Scholarship Foundation sparked my interest in International Relations and China's foreign policy.
RESEARCH
Dissertation
Courtiers or consultants?
The construction of China's national interest between top-down rule and societal debate

Frame analysis
I am developing a new approach for applying frame analysis to the study of Chinese politics
PUBLICATIONS

Shei, Wei, 2021, The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies, Routledge, London.
Reading between the lines: How frame analysis reveals the Chinese government’s policy priorities
Tickner, Smith, 2020, International Relations from the Global South - Worlds of Difference, Routledge, London.
The Global IR Debate in the Classroom
(with Wiebke Wemheuer-Vogelaar, Ingo Peters, Laura Kemmer, Alina Kleinn, Luisa Linke-Behrens).
Journal of Contemporary China, 2017, 26:107, pp 650-663.
Whose Voices Shape China’s Global Image?
Links Between Reporting Conditions and Quoted Sources in News about China
Peters, Wemheuer-Vogelaar, 2016, Globalizing International Relations - Scholarship Amidst Divides and Diversity, Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Chinese International Relations (IR) Scholars' Publishing Practices and Language: The "Peaceful Rise"—Debate
TEACHING

Foreign Policy Analysis - Actors, Approaches, and Disruptions
University of Freiburg
BA Political Science
Through critically assessing the most important theoretical approaches in Foreign Policy Analysis, twe examine the roles of a wide range of foreign policy actors from leaders over the bureaucracy and interest groups to the public in the different stages of the foreign policy process.

Authoritarian Rule in the Digital Age
University of Hamburg
BA Political Science
The course focuses on the strategies authoritarian rulers use to sustain their rule and how they are adapting these strategies in the digital age. Based on the characteristics of authoritarian rule, students learn how to systematically compare authoritarian regimes with each other.