Joshua Eisenman
Associate Professor of Politics

3139 Jenkins Nanovic Halls
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
(574) 631-5215
jeisenman@nd.edu
Joshua Eisenman
Associate Professor of Politics
Expertise
International political economy; comparative politics; development; Chinese politics; US-China relations; China’s relations with developing countries; China-Africa relations
At the Keough School
Joshua Eisenman is associate professor of politics in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He also is a fellow of the Keough School’s Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and Pulte Institute for Global Development.
Courses
- Policymaking for a Global Era (undergraduate course)
- US-China Relations (elective for undergraduate global affairs major)
- China, Dev & the Global South (elective for master of global affairs)
Research and Publications
Joshua Eisenman’s (马佳士) research focuses on the political economy of China’s development and foreign relations with the United States and the Global South —particularly Africa. His latest book, China’s Relations with Africa: A New Era of Strategic Engagement (Columbia University Press, 2023) with Ambassador David H. Shinn, examines the full scope of political and security relations between China and Africa. It explains the tactics and methods that China uses to build relations with African countries and contextualizes and interprets them within Beijing’s larger geostrategy. The book is a follow-up to China and Africa: A Century of Engagement (University of Pennsylvania Press), which was named one of the “Best International Relations Books of 2012″ by Foreign Affairs. In 2020, that book’s updated second edition was published in Chinese by the Chinese University of Hong Kong Press.
Eisenman’s research has appeared in top development economics journals including World Development, Development and Change, Third World Quarterly, and the Journal of International Development, and in various other prestigious academic publications such as Environmental Politics, Global Environmental Politics, the Journal of Contemporary China, China Review, and Cold War History. He has also written for popular outlets including Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy, and his views on China’s domestic and foreign policy have been quoted in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, on Nation
Eisenman fourth book, Red China’s Green Revolution: Technological Innovation, Institutional Change, and Economic Development Under the Commune (Columbia University Press, 2018) received the 2019 Robert W. Hamilton Book Award honorable mention and was highly reviewed in more than a dozen prestigious outlets including Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the American Historical Review, Journal of Asian Studies, and the China Journal. The book explains how more capital investment and better farming techniques increased agricultural productivity growth in Maoist China. In China Steps Out: Beijing’s Major Power Engagement with the Developing World (Routledge, 2018), Eisenman worked with Eric Heginbotham to analyze and compare China’s policies toward the Global South.
Biography
Eisenman has been a visiting faculty member at Fudan University (summer 2017), Peking University (summer 2016), and NYU–Shanghai (2011–12). He was a policy analyst on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (2003–05) and has been senior fellow for China studies at the American Foreign Policy Council since 2006. Before coming to Notre Dame in 2019, he was assistant professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.
Eisenman holds a PhD in political science from UCLA, an MA in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he studied at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center, and a BA in East Asian Studies from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
Recent Work
- Book review: Rising China’s influence in developing Asia (The China Journal)
- Journal article: Building a more “democratic” and “multipolar” world: China’s strategic engagement with developing countries (The China Review)
- Analysis: Countering China’s security state: A bipartisan approach (American Foreign Policy Council)
- Essay: China’s geostrategic conception of the developing world (East Asia Forum Quarterly)
In the Media
- China-Africa party ties create Beijing-centric world, new book says (Axios)
- China’s foreign minister hasn’t been seen in a month. Analysts aren’t optimistic (NPR)
- China can’t have it both ways in Europe (Foreign Policy)
- Global affairs professor discusses deteriorating U.S.-China relations (The Observer)
- China is tweaking its propaganda for African audiences (Foreign Policy)
- The Biden-Xi meeting shows that U.S.-China relations will get worse, not better (The Washington Post)
- The Chinese ambassador’s charm offensive is falling flat in Washington (The Washington Post)
- Biden set to discuss Taiwan with Chinese leader at virtual meeting (CBS News)
- Beijing’s schadenfreude over the Capitol riots conceals deep anxiety (Foreign Policy)
- Time to revisit trans-Pacific trade (The Hill)
- China’s global critics are helping it win (Foreign Policy)