USU Political Scientist Wins Prestigious East Asia Institute Fellowship
Kai He, assistant professor of political science at Utah State University, was recently awarded one of five fellowships at the East Asia Institute in South Korea for scholars with expertise in peace, governance and development in East Asia.
Professor He, an expert of international security and political economy, will spend three weeks in Asia meeting with leading experts of Chinese policy about his current research project analyzing the country’s foreign policy behavior.
The EAI Fellows Program was established in 2005 as an international exchange program for up-and-coming scholars of East Asian Studies from outside the region to present new work at partnering higher education institutions in Seoul, Shanghai, Tokyo, Beijing and Taipei. It enables researchers like professor He to further develop their peer network and connect with practitioners in their fields. Fellows are selected for developing potentially ground-breaking research.
He’s topic, “Explaining China’s Foreign Policy Crisis Behavior after the Cold War,” examines the actions of China’s leaders since the Cold War and searches for patterns in their decision-making. He will apply Prospect Theory — a psychological theory about decision-making under risk conditions — to China’s international relations policies. The project is based on He’s research, performed in China in summer 2011 and funded by a USU faculty seed grant.
“I try to do research that has policy relevance,” He said. “The fellowship is going to give me the opportunity to meet with the leading scholars of Asian politics to talk about my work and get some feedback. Right now, we don’t have a Cold War with China, but there is a lot of trouble between China and the United States and between China and its neighbors.”
Understanding the conditions under which leaders make risky foreign policy choices in China may help guide Sino-U.S. relations in the future and help reduce tensions, he said.
Professor He is the author of Institutional Balancing in the Asia-Pacific: Economic Interdependence and China’s Rise (London and New York: Routledge, 2009). Prior to his career in academia, He worked as a research fellow at a leading policy think-tank in Beijing. After earning his doctorate at Arizona State University, He taught at Spelman College and Georgia State University.
He spent the 2009-10 academic year as a visiting postdoctoral research associate in the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Professor He was also a 2009-10 Bradley research fellow of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and joined the faculty at Utah State University in the Department of Political Science in 2009.
Related links:
USU Political Science Department
USU College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
Writer: Kristen Munson, (435) 797-0257, Kristen.munson@usu.edu
Contact: Kai He, (435) 797-1305, kai.he@usu.edu
Kai He, assistant professor of political science, will join four other research fellows at the East Asia Institute in 2012.
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