Princeton-Harvard China and the World Postdoctoral Fellows

Todd Hall, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Postdoctoral Fellowship
thall@uchicago.edu

Todd Hall received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2008. While at Harvard his topic will be Emotional States? Emotional Idioms in International Relations. The research seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for addressing the role of emotional behavior at the interstate level. For this purpose, he will develop a theory of emotional idioms, which are defined as implicitly shared understandings of emotional rhetoric, expressive behavior, and action tendencies. In contrast to scholars who advocate focusing on individual-level emotions, he instead proposes investigating the possibility that policymakers, regardless of what their own emotions may be, strategically draw upon emotional idioms when formulating foreign policy. In particular, he suggests that the use of emotional idioms in international relations provides a means to express intentions and convey meaningful signals. To probe the utility of this theoretical framework relative to neo-utilitarian approaches, three empirical domains will be examined: German-Israeli relations, Sino-American relations, and the responses of various state governments to the September 11 attacks.

Andrew Kennedy, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Postdoctoral Fellowship
abk1001@gmail.com

Andrew Kennedy received his PhD in 2007 from the Department of Government at Harvard. He is currently completing a book manuscript focusing on Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru which explores why leaders sometimes make surprisingly bold choices in foreign policy. Entitled The Origins of Audacity: National Efficacy Beliefs and the Cold War Crusades of Mao and Nehru, the project explores how both Mao and Nehru developed strong beliefs about the “national efficacy” of their states in their respective struggles for power, beliefs which then shaped their very different approaches to foreign policy after they came to power. In addition, he will also begin a new project exploring how China and India are pursuing energy and environmental security in the post-Cold War era.

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