Thomas J. Christensen

James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; Director, China and the World Program, School of International and Public Affairs

tjc2175@columbia.edu

(212) 854-8550

1414 International Affairs

Thomas J. Christensen is the James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations; and Director of the China and the World Program, at Columbia University. he served as Interim Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs during the 2021-22 academic year. Christensen arrived in 2018 from Princeton University where he was William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War, Director of the Princeton-Harvard China and the World Program, and faculty director of the Masters of Public Policy Program and the Truman Scholars Program. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. His most recent book, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (W.W. Norton) was an editors’ choice at the New York Times Book Review, a “Book of the Week” on CNN”s Fareed Zakaria GPS, and the Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medalist for 2016 at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Christensen has also taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his B.A. with honors in History from Haverford College, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. He has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press, and as a member of the Academic Advisory Committee for the Schwarzman Scholars Program. He is currently the Chair of the Editorial Board of the Nancy B. Tucker and Warren I. Cohen Book Series on the United States in Asia at Columbia University Press. Christensen is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. He was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.

Books

John T. Downey, Thomas J. Christensen, and Jack Lee Downey, Lost in the Cold War: The Story of Jack Downey, America’s Longest-Held POW (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2022).

Thomas J. Christensen, The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power (New York: W. W. Norton, 2015).

Principal Articles

Thomas J. Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Multipolarity, Perceptions, and the Tragedy of 1914,” International Studies Quarterly 55, no. 2 (June 2011).

Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Progressive Research on Degenerate Alliances,” American Political Science Review 91, no. 4 (December 1997).

Thomas J. Christensen, Jack S. Levy, and Marc Trachtenberg, “Mobilization and Inadvertence in the July Crisis,” International Security 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991).

Thomas Christensen and Jack Snyder, “Chain Gangs and Passed Bucks: Predicting Alliance Patterns in Multipolarity,” International Organization 44, no. 2 (Spring 1990).