John Wagner Givens
John Wagner Givens is an Associate Professor in the International Studies Department at Spelman College. He earned his Doctorate in Politics from the University of Oxford and his Masters in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley. He has been interviewed by Georgia Public Broadcasting and Chinese Central Television and has published in a variety of venues including China Quarterly, The Review of Policy Research, Fordham Urban Law Journal, Wisconsin International Law Journal, New Global Studies, Journal of East Asian Studies, War on the Rocks, and Newsweek.
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Expertise
John has conducted research and published on a variety of topics including online politics in Asia, the Malaysian media, legal advice websites, smart cities, and Chinese politics, law, and foreign policy.
Taiwan is Not Ukraine; it is its Opposite
Global Policy
The Measure of a Country: America’s Wonkiest Competition with China
War on the Rocks
Recent Media and Public Scholarship
Nationalism and the Pandemic
Working with Evan Mistur, I find that nationalist leaders with little else in common have taken policy cues from other nationalists in responding to the coronavirus pandemic since the early days of the crisis.
Xi Jinping's Dominant Faction
Eun Choi, Andrew W. MacDonald, and I investigate Xi Jinping's consolidation of power. Unprecedented since the time of Mao, we show that Xi has created a single dominant faction in the Chinese Communist Party.
Smart Cities or Big Brother?
Debra Lam and I consider how the race for smart cities could determine the future of China, democracy, and privacy. We argue that democracies must work together to provide an alternative to Chinese smart city technology.
RECENT ARTICLES
Contagious COVID-19 Policies
Working with Evan Mistur and Daniel Matisoff
we find that countries mimic their neighbors and peers in their responses to COVID-19 rather than responding directly to the COVID conditions in their own countries.
Xi Jinping's Dominant Faction
Eun Choi, Andrew W. MacDonald, and I investigate Xi Jinping's consolidation of power. Unprecedented since the time of Mao, we show that Xi has created a single dominant faction in the Chinese Communist Party.
