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About
Yao Yuan is an Assistant Research Fellow at the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of International Relations at LSE. His research interests lie at the intersection of international politics and international finance, with a particular focus on great-power financial interactions, geoeconomics, global financial governance, and the international monetary system.
He received his PhD from the Zhou Enlai School of Government at Nankai University, where his doctoral dissertation examined the financial security dilemma in international relations. He has published a number of articles on international financial public goods, global financial governance, financial sanctions, international financial security, and financial security interactions among great powers, as well as book chapters on irregular migration and refugee issues. He has also contributed book chapters on issues related to irregular migration and refugees. He has also published a translated book on transformations in the global order.
Yao is currently working on two research projects. The first examines the relationship between the US dollar and American state capacity. It explores how US state capacity has operated at key stages in the dollar’s development—including its emergence, internationalization, and digitalization—with the aim of uncovering the underlying logic of state power behind the persistence and evolution of the dollar system.
The second project examines states’ strategic choices in coordinating development and security. It seeks to theorize how states in open economies balance these two major policy objectives, and, on this basis, explain major developments in the history of international political economy, including the transition of economic hegemony from Britain to the United States, US-Japan economic and trade conflicts, and the ongoing strategic interplay between China and the United States.
Research Cluster affiliation
International Political Economy research cluster
Not available to supervise PhD students
Expertise
Financial Statecraft; International Monetary System; Global Financial Governance