Department of Government

Matthew Rudolph is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Government Department. His work is based on the premise that security should be broadly defined to encompass economy, international society, military security, and technology. His research approach blends international and domestic factors, emphasizing political institutions and political elites. He has worked on security politics and arms control in Asia; the international political economy of finance; and U.S., Indian, and Chinese foreign policy.

Rudolph’s current research and writing is focused on several projects. First, he is revising a book manuscript based on his doctoral thesis, "The Diversity of Convergence: State Authority, Economic Governance, and the Politics of Securities Finance in India and China." In it he compares the politics of stock and bond market development in China and India during the 1990s and explains how and why India’s financial system is less politicized and less fragile than China’s. He is currently completing several article-length projects drawing on research conducted in Asia in 2004-2005 and earlier, including an article analyzing Indian grand strategy and foreign policy in the context of the U.S.-China-India strategic triangle; an article analyzing the India-China rivalry in information technology (IT) with a focus on the politics of India’s first leading global sector—IT services; and an article identifying contested sovereignty as a key driver of Asian insecurity.

Before entering academia Rudolph worked for three years at the Stimson Center, where he collaborated in the first generation of studies and programs on Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) in non-European regions of tension. Focusing on South Asia and North East Asia, he traveled regularly to India and Pakistan for research and project development. During that time Rudolph also was the liaison between visiting fellows and CBM experts in the U.S. departments of Defense and State. Rudolph has spent eight years studying in India and conducting research around South Asia. He has also studied and conducted research in Greater China for over two years. He speaks Hindi, Mandarin, and French.

Rudolph has received his doctorate in Political Science from Cornell University. He has received fellowships from the Institute of Current World Affairs; the Mellon Foundation; the Social Science Research Council; the Committee on Scholarly Communication with China; the Fulbright Program; and the American Institute of Indian Studies. His work on political economy and security policy has been published by the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Institute of Current World Affairs, and various American and Indian newspapers. He has presented papers at annual conferences of the American Political Science Association; the Association of Asian Studies; the International Studies Association; and the University of Wisconsin Annual South Asia Conference. In 2006 he was a research and teaching fellow at Princeton University’s Institute for International and Regional Studies.