This week on Sinica, I welcome back Michael Cerny — formerly of the Carter Center and now a Ph.D. student at Harvard — and Rory Truex of Princeton University to discuss a new working paper they've co-authored. They undertook a large-scale survey of foreign policy professionals at U.S. think tanks to ascertain whether there is a "consensus" on China policy, as is often claimed, and whether people working in think tanks feel pressure to take on more "hawkish" positions on China policy. We also introduce a new segment called "Paying it Forward."
5:04 – What motivated Michael and Rory to write their paper together
7:30 – Groupthink vs. consensus
10:08 – The methodology: combining surveys and interviews, and the sampling frame
14:35 – Trying to avoid leading questions
17:58 – Creating the “China Confrontation Index”
20:25 – Different levels of acceptance of the labels “hawk” and “dove”
23:33 – The issue of preference falsification
25:43 – Mechanisms behind disparities in perceived pressure
29:01 – Tying in Rory’s previous research on self-censorship
32:42 – How Michael and Rory decided on interviews
34:10 – What Michael believes were the most important and robust findings
36:09 – The distinction between the beliefs of think tankers vs. elected officials, and why people tend to believe there is a bipartisan consensus on China
40:34 – Pressure on hawks
42:35 – Specific policy questions
44:18 – Feedback on the paper so far, and what Michael and Rory may tweak in a subsequent draft
49:47 – The possible role of personality in hawkishness or dovishness
51:58 – Discussing Mike Mazarr’s concerns about the potential parallels between current Chinese discourse and the lead-up to the Iraq War
55:06 – Advice to younger professionals entering the foreign policy/China field
New segment: Paying It Forward:
Rory: Michael Cerny and Edi Obiakpani-Reid
Recommendations:
Rory: Edi Obiakpani-Reid’s Sinobabble podcast about Chinese history
Michael: Jeffrey Ding’s Technology and the Rise of Great Powers: How Diffusion Shapes Economic Competition
Kaiser: Imperium by Robert Harris
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