Alexander Vuving

Dr. Alexander L. Vuving came to the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in 2008 from Tulane University, where he taught courses on International Relations, International Security, China and the World, and a field seminar in International Politics. Prior to Tulane, Dr. Vuving was a Post-doctoral Fellow and an Associate of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. He was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Dr. Vuving spent his formative years in Vietnam, Hungary, France, and Germany during times of dramatic changes—the wars in Indochina, the collapse of communism, and the European unification. These events have helped shape much of his professional curiosity.

Dr. Vuving’s research interests focus on the Evolution of Power Politics, including great power competition and the grand strategies of major powers; Soft Power, including its nature, mechanisms, and sources; and the longer History of Human Power, including its physical and biological roots, its coercive, structural, transactional, and attractive ways, and its game-changers—the state and the scientific revolution. With regard to contemporary issues, his major areas of research include the rise of China, Chinese strategy, regional security architecture, the struggle between a rules-based and a hierarchical international order, conflict resolution in the gray zone, Vietnamese politics and foreign policy, and the South China Sea. Dr. Vuving uses a multidisciplinary approach to his research, ranging from game theory and evolutionary biology to economics, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and political science. He has published in major academic journals and global affairs magazines and presented at leading universities and think tanks around the world. Numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Associated Press, and Bloomberg, among others, have featured and quoted his views.

Dr. Vuving serves on the Editorial Board of the academic journals Asian Politics and Policy and Global Discourse. He is a referee for Oxford University Press, International Security, and Asian Security, among others. He was the guest editor of a special issue on “How China’s Rise is Changing Asia’s Landscape and Seascape” for Asian Politics and Policy.

Dr. Vuving studied Political Science, Economics, Sociology, and Electronic Engineering at Cornell University, the Johannes Gutenberg University, the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, and the Hanoi University of Science and Technology. He received his MA (summa cum laude) in Political Science, Sociology, and Economics, and his PhD (magna cum laude) in Political Science from the Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany. He was a German National Merit Scholar (Studienstiftler) and a recipient of the prestigious Konrad Adenauer Foundation scholarship.

Dr. Vuving’s Publications:

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