Prof Evelyn Goh

• East Asian international relations and security ('traditional' and 'non-traditional')
• U.S.-China and China-Japan diplomatic history and contemporary strategic relations
• International Relations theory
• Cold War history
• Security studies

Key research-related activities:

• Convenor of the Graduate Research and Development Network on Asian Security (GRADNAS) 
• Co-Managing Editor of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series at Cambridge University Press, UK 
• Member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on International Security (2016-18)

Key research-related institutional responsibilities:

• Director of Research at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, ANU
• Deputy Director (Research) at the Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, ANU
• Convenor of the ANU Women in International Security (WIIS) initiative and the 2020-21 ‘Women in Asia-Pacific Security Research’ seminar series
• As the Shedden Professor, convenor of the Shedden Lectures, the Shedden Research Roundtables on Asian Security, and the Shedden Lunchtime Talks@Russell at the Australian Department of Defence, 2014-2019

Watch Dr. Amy King introduce Prof. Evelyn Goh's scholarly contributions, and Evelyn speak about her experience as a woman scholar of international security here (11-minute video on Youtube).  

Evelyn Goh is the Shedden Professor of Strategic Policy Studies at the Australian National University, where she is also Research Director at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre. She has published widely on U.S.-China relations and diplomatic history, regional security order in East Asia, Southeast Asian strategies towards great powers, and environmental security. These include The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia (Oxford University Press, 2013); ‘Great Powers and Hierarchical Order in Southeast Asia: Analyzing Regional Security Strategies’, International Security 32:3 (Winter 2007/8):113-57; and Constructing the US Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974 (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Her most recent edited volume is Rising China’s Influence in Developing Asia (Oxford University Press, 2016), and her latest book (co-authored with Barry Buzan) is Re-thinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities (Oxford University Press, 2020).

She is the co-Managing Editor of the Cambridge Studies in International Relations book series, and serves on the Editorial Boards of various academic journals, including International Security, International Theory, Asian Security, and Journal of Global Security Studies.

Evelyn moved to Australia and the ANU in August 2013, and has held previous faculty positions at Royal Holloway University of London; the University of Oxford; and the Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore. She has held various visiting positions, including Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and Southeast Asian Fellow at the East-West Center, both in Washington DC. Major project grants include a UK Economic & Social Research Council Mid-Career Fellowship (2011-12); an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (2019-2022); an East Asia Institute Fellowship (2011); and research grants from the British Academy, MacArthur Foundation, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.

The Infrastructure of China's Influence: Connecting Developmentalism, Nation-building, and Regime Security in Asia

Funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant (2019-2022), this project investigates how China uses infrastructure-driven development to wield international influence, by studying how Chinese ideas of ‘developmentalism’ interact with nation-building and regime security imperatives in Indonesia, Myanmar and Laos.

Connecting Chinese Investment and Influence in Southeast Asia

This project investigates the impacts of Chinese investment states in Southeast Asia, providing an important region-wide analysis that allows quantitative and qualitative comparisons and facilitates policy calibration and focus. Part of the SEARBO project led by Prof. Paul Hutchcroft.

'Strategic Diplomacy' for the 21st Century (with Jochen Prantl, ANU)

A collaborative multi-year project (ongoing since 2014) that develops an original ‘Strategic Diplomacy’ model of diagnostic analysis and policy-making for complex systems problems in international relations. Prantl and Goh are creating unique cross-regional and thematic research case files of effective concepts and practice; new postgraduate education and executive training; and an extensive engagement program with global end-user communities.

Strategic Policy for the Asia-Pacific in Transition

Supported by Australian Department of Defence Strategic Policy Grant funding, this project facilitates research into strategy and strategic policy in the Asia-Pacific; develops and delivers a suite of original Professional Education Courses for Defence; and allows innovative engagement with senior defence officials on crucial strategic challenges. 

Re-thinking Sino-Japanese Alienation: History Problems and Historical Opportunities  (with Barry Buzan, LSE)

A major scholarly book published in Janaury 2020 with Oxford University Press, setting out two innovative conceptual and empirical approaches to reconsider shared histories in Northeast Asia. Watch the authors discussing the book. Watch Prof. Goh’s presentation of the four scenarios for East Asia’s future order (Chapter 7). Listen to Prof. Buzan’s discussion of the book’s historical approach.

Worldviews on the United States, Alliances, and International Order (with Ryo Sahashi, University of Tokyo)

This project investigates the changing meaning and significance of being American allies or strategic partners, in a fast-evolving international order. Academic contributors have conducted research on a dozen countries in the Asia-Pacific and Europe. These include: Australia, Germany, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, and Vietnam. We also had draft papers on NATO, Eastern Europe, Okinawa, and Taiwan.

LATEST PUBLICATIONS: 

Professor Goh seeks highly-motivated research students with excellent academic records who are interested in scholarly research within her wide areas of interest. 

Professor Goh will consider supervision requests for PhB ASC, Honours in Security Studies, and Masters (Strategic Studies) sub-theses in topics on Asia-Pacific security and international relations, and US foreign policy. At this time, she is particularly interested in applicants wanting to learn to conduct academic, theoretically-informed analysis of: 

• China's contemporary or historical influence in the regions around its periphery.
• Chinese conceptions of the nexus between security and development (use of Chinese-language sources essential).
• Asian conceptions of the relationships between environment and development (use of relevant language sources preferred).

She will consider Doctoral applications from excellent students interested in studying Asia-Pacific security topics (contemporary and historical); theory development for international relations and international security (especially English School); and diplomatic history of the Cold War (based on new archival sources). Only well-written proposals that demonstrate potential for theoretical innovation as well as empirical originality will be considered. Enquiries about prospective PhD supervision should note instructions here. She is currently considering Expressions of Interest for entry in February 2023.   

Professor Goh has supervised 18 PhD students. Currently, she is the primary supervisor for the following PhD students at ANU:

• Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, "Indonesia, Australia and the great powers in the Cold War"
• Yusuke Ishihara, "Japan's new foreign and strategic policy in the 1970s: negotiating a 'post-Cold War' identity and strategic bargain"
• Emirza Adi Syailendra, "Explaining maritime Southeast Asian countries' restraint towards China after the Cold War"
• Tommy Chai, "Smaller-state autonomy enhancement through alignment strategies under conditions of intense great-power rivalry"

ANU Masters (Advanced) sub-theses supervised by Prof Goh include:

• Elke Larsen, "Narrative dominance: Explaining the creation of the 'Canberra consensus' about the US alliance, 2003-4" (2017)
• Joel Einstein, "Australian strategic discourse about Indonesia, 1998-2016" (2018)
• Rebecca Saylor, "U.S. Erosion of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Regime: India Case Study, 1998 and 2005" (2019)
• Evan Keeble, "China's Management of its Contradictory 'Core Interests' since 1978" (2019)
• Tommy Chai, "Small state autonomy enhancement through alignment strategies during intense great power competition" (2020)