Jennifer Lind

Abstract

In February, STAIR’s Managing Editor spoke with Jennifer Lind, associate professor of government at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, a faculty associate at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, and a fellow at Chatham House. An expert on the international relations of East Asia and US foreign policy toward the region, she spoke about her International Security article, “Back to Bipolarity: How China’s Rise Transformed the Balance of Power,” in which she argues that the current international system is bipolar, with the United States and China as the leading superpowers. This interview explores the concept of polarity in greater depth, along with the similarities and differences between the Cold War and today’s international system. Read in dialogue with the interview with Professor Barry Buzan in this issue, Professor Lind presents the case against drawing simplistic comparisons between contemporary international politics and the Cold War, and instead prefers analytic concepts like polarity. This conversation was edited for clarity.