Dr. Theo Westphal

I am a researcher specialising in China’s governance, development, and global engagement, with an interdisciplinary background in International Relations and Chinese/East Asian Studies. My work explores how governance and global order are shaped, enacted, and contested in everyday contexts. Drawing on anthropological and international relations perspectives, I seek to understand how local practices, state policies, and global transformations intersect in China’s evolving political and social landscape.

My current research develops this interest through an ethnographically informed study of land commodification and the moral economies of development in China. It examines how land, property, and territory are transformed into assets within China’s ongoing processes of marketisation and financialisation, and how these shifts reshape everyday relations between state, capital, and citizens.

Broadly, I am interested in how China’s domestic transformations both reflect and reshape global order—from questions of policy and authority to the management of land, resources, and social change. My work aims to bridge disciplinary and methodological divides, contributing to empirically grounded and conceptually plural understandings of China’s role in the world.

Professional Career

2025–Present

• Research Associate, Social Anthropology, Faculty of Sociology, Bielefeld University

2021–2024

• Research Assistant, School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield
• Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Sheffield and the University of Manchester (various undergraduate and postgraduate modules across Politics, International Relations, East Asian Studies, and Journalism Studies)

2015–2016

• Research Assistant, IN-EAST, University of Duisburg-Essen

2013

• Intern, Stiftung Asienhaus, Cologne (EU–China NGO Twinning Programme)

Education

2019–2024

• PhD in International Relations, Department of Politics & International Relations, University of Sheffield
• Thesis: Normative Power with Chinese Characteristics? China's Relational Promotion of Cyberspace Sovereignty

2018–2019

• MA in Social Research, Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield
• Dissertation: Learning to be a Relational Great Power? The Evolution of China’s Norm Entrepreneurship along the Belt and Road Initiative (2013–2021)

2014–2017

• MA in Modern East Asian Studies, IN-EAST, University of Duisburg-Essen
• Focus: China’s international relations and political economy, East and Southeast Asian security, constructivist and role theory approaches to IR

2011–2014

• BA in Economy and Politics of East Asia, Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr University Bochum
• Focus: Chinese politics and history since 1949, East Asian international relations, theories of international relations

Research Interests

• Land commodification, property regimes, and spatial governance in contemporary China
• Financialisation and the transformation of value in socialist and post-socialist contexts
• Global–local interactions in development and governance in China
• State governance, legitimacy, and the politics of development in China
• China’s impact on international norms (e.g., cyberspace sovereignty) and its role in the Global South
• Normative change and emerging visions of global (dis)order across the Global South

Fellowships and Awards

• Universities’ China Committee in London (UCCL) PhD Research Grant (2023)
• ESRC Overseas Fieldwork Funding, Beijing, PRC (2022–23)
• ESRC 1+3 Studentship, University of Sheffield (2018–23)
• AlFreDO Prize for the Best MA Thesis in East Asian Studies at the IN-EAST, University of Duisburg-Essen (2017)

Publications

Monograph

• Westphal, T. (2018) Chinese Foreign Policy under Xi Jinping: The South China Sea Disputes. Hamburg: Verlag Dr Kovac.

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

• Malloy, C. & Westphal, T. (2023) “Narrating the BRI in Europe: Examining Agency and Positioning in the German Logistics Sector.” In: E. Priupolina & T. D. Eckstein (eds.), Narratives in East Asia and Beyond: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Using Narratives as a Research Method. Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Lexington Books, 143-166.

• Li, Y., Bolton, K., & Westphal, T. (2018) “The Effect of the New Silk Road Railways on Aggregate Trade Volumes between China and Europe.” Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, 16(3): 275–292.

Book Reviews

• Westphal, T. & Wang, R. (2023) “Artificial Intelligence with Chinese Characteristics: National Strategy, Security and Authoritarian Governance.” International Affairs, 99(1): 410–411.

Languages

German (native), English (fluent), Chinese (advanced), French (intermediate)