At times China has organised multilateral cooperation and invested in new institutions, while at other times it has worked to revise the rules governing existing international organisations or passively accepted existing governance institutions without either challenging them or contributing to their development.

In this workshop, Dr Kastner explores China’s varying behaviour and offers an explanation for it, focusing on the broader strategic environment in which China is enmeshed. The presentation will be followed by a discussion among workshop participants.

Scott Kastner is Associate Professor in the Department of Government and Politics, University of Maryland. He graduated from Cornell University (1995), and received his PhD in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego (2003). Kastner is the author of Political Conflict and Economic Interdependence across the Taiwan Strait and Beyond (Stanford University Press, 2009), and co-editor of Globalization and Security Relations across the Taiwan Strait: In the Shadow of China (Routledge, 2015). His work has also appeared in a wide range of top journals, including International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, and Security Studies.