FACULTY | M. Taylor Fravel
Biography
M. Taylor Fravel is Associate Professor of Political Science and member of the Security Studies Program at MIT. Taylor is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University, a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, a Fellow with the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program and a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In March 2010, he was named Research Associate with the National Asia Research Program launched by the National Bureau of Asian Research and the Woodrow Wilson International Center.
Research
Taylor studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. He is the author of Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes (Princeton University Press, 2008) and co-editor of Rethinking China's Rise: A Reader (Oxford University Press, 2010). He is currently completing a book-length study of major change in China's military doctrine since 1949, entitled Active Defense: Explaining the Evolution of China's Military (under advanced contract with Princeton University Press). He is also studying the relationship between material capabilities and political influence in China's rise as a great power. His research has been supported by various organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and the Smith Richardson Foundation.
Recent Publications
"International Relations Theory and China's Rise: Assessing China's Potential for Territorial Expansion," International Studies Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (December 2010)
"China's Search for Assured Retaliation: Explaining the Evolution of China's Nuclear Strategy," International Security, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Fall 2010)(with Evan S. Medeiros)
"The Limits of Diversion: Rethinking Internal and External Conflict," Security Studies, Vol. 19, No. 2 (May 2010)
"Explaining Stability in the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Dispute," in Gerald Curtis, Ryosei Kokubun and Wang Jisi, eds., Getting the Triangle Straight: Managing China-Japan-US Relations (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press, forthcoming 2010)
Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China's Territorial Disputes. Princeton University Press, 2008
"China's Search for Military Power" The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 33, No. 3 (Summer 2008)
"Securing Borders: China's Doctrine and Force Structure for Frontier Defense" Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4-5 (August 2007)
Subjects
17.950 Territorial Conflict
17.407/17.408 Chinese Foreign Policy: International Relations and Strategy (Syllabus)
17.433/17.434 International Relations of East Asia
17.418 Field Seminar in International Relations
17.THT Thesis Research Design Seminar
