Sabine Mokry
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PhD Candidate at Leiden University,
Associate Researcher at the GIGA &
Incoming Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program
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My research focuses on how domestic factors shape China’s foreign policy. In my dissertation, I examine under what conditions Chinese scholars and think tanks influence the construction of China’s national interest.
MY BACKGROUND
2016-2019
Research Associate
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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
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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
PUBLICATIONS
The Pacific Review, 2023, online first.
China’s Foreign Policy Rhetoric Between Orchestration and Cacophony
Foreign Policy Analysis, 2022, 18 (3), 1-17.
What is Lost in Translation? Differences Between Chinese Foreign Policy Statements and Their Official English Translations
International Politics, 2023, online first.
Grand strategy and the construction of the national interest – the underpinnings of Sino-US strategic competition
Journal of Contemporary China, 2017, 26 (107), 650-663.
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Whose Voices Shape China’s Global Image?
Links Between Reporting Conditions and Quoted Sources in News about China
TEACHING
Chinese Foreign Policy
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BA seminar at Hamburg University,
MA seminar at Leuphana University Lüneburg
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We discuss theoretical approaches located at different levels of analysis to explain critical developments in China’s foreign policy. In addition, we examine empirical issues following participants’ interests.
Authoritarian Rule in the Digital Age
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BA seminar at Hamburg University
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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.
Introduction to Foreign Policy Analysis
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BA seminar at Leuphana University Lüneburg and the University of Freiburg
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Through critically assessing the most important theoretical approaches in FPA, we examine the role of different foreign policy actors from leaders over the bureucracy and interests groups to the public in different stages of the foreign policy process.
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Introduction to International Politics
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BA seminar at the University of Freiburg
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We critically assess the theoretical approaches that shape debates within International Relations from different variants of realism, liberalism, and constructivism to feminism, post-colonialism and Marxism. By applying them to current case studies we discuss the approaches’ explanatory potential.