Security, identity, and the making of political order

I am an International Relations scholar working on international security, political order and Global China. My research examines how security, legitimacy and political order are produced and sustained through relationships, institutions and everyday practice—particularly where formal structures are weak, contested or politically ambiguous, and, increasingly, whether the same logics hold where institutions are strong.

Across two connected research programmes, I study relational security and Global China, and the making of political identity and community in Taiwan, particularly through transitional justice, memory and contested sovereignty. My current fellowship at Harvard’s Fairbank Center develops the Taiwan strand, including how transitional-justice processes shape identity, legitimacy and boundaries of political membership.

Taipei skyline with Taipei 101, layered mountains, and green hills

Hou Family Fellow in Taiwan Studies

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University

September 2026 – 31 August 2027

At the Fairbank Center, I am developing research on Taiwanese political identity and transitional justice, examining how memory and transitional-justice processes shape identity, legitimacy and boundaries of inclusion and exclusion. A related strand extends these questions internationally through recognition, diplomacy and Taiwan–Somaliland relations, situating Taiwan within wider debates on contested sovereignty and international order.

Portrait of Felix Brender 王哲謙

Research

My research combines two connected programmes in international security and contested political order, centred empirically on Global China and Taiwan. Both examine how political relationships acquire security, legitimacy and practical force.

Relational Security & Global China

This programme examines how security and political order emerge through relationships, everyday practices and formal and informal institutions. My doctoral research in Juba used multilingual ethnographic fieldwork and around 100 interviews to trace how Chinese residents perceived risk and produced security through reciprocity, trust and social embeddedness. It develops a relational account of security that challenges assumptions about Chinese risk tolerance in high-risk environments.

This work now informs a wider research agenda on relational security, microgeopolitics, peacebuilding and China's changing role in international and regional security, particularly across Africa and the Arab world. My current project follows these questions into the Gulf, where strong states, enforced rules and overlapping US and Chinese security ties offer a harder test of the relational argument.

  • International Security
  • Relational Security
  • Global China
  • Political Order
  • Microgeopolitics
  • Conflict & Peacebuilding

Taiwan, Identity & Contested Political Order

This programme examines how Taiwanese political identity is made and contested through memory, institutions and political narratives, with particular attention to transitional justice as an identity-making process. I am especially interested in how transitional-justice mechanisms help define political community and legitimacy, and how processes intended to reckon with authoritarian rule can also draw boundaries of inclusion and exclusion.

A related strand examines Taiwan’s international positioning under conditions of contested sovereignty, including recognition, diplomacy and Taiwan–Somaliland relations. It asks how Taiwan performs political and diplomatic identity internationally, and how unrecognised or partially recognised political entities exercise agency beyond conventional recognition competition.

  • Taiwan
  • Political Identity
  • Transitional Justice
  • Recognition & Diplomacy
  • Contested Sovereignty
  • Somaliland
  • Indo-Pacific
  • International Order

Across both programmes, I ask how security, legitimacy and political agency are produced when formal institutions and categories do not fully determine political relationships — and what this means for political order.

Selected Academic Publications

Journal Article

Teaching Sleeping Dogs New Tricks? Transitional Justice as Identity-Building.

Open Cultural Studies, 6(1), 2022, 12–24.

Examines transitional justice as an identity-building process in Taiwan.

Book Chapter · Forthcoming

People of and by the Sea: Materiality of the Ocean in Creating and Maintaining Taiwanese Identity through Foreign Policy.

In Sybille Reinke de Buitrago & Dana Trif (eds.), Materiality and Foreign Policy. Palgrave Macmillan. Accepted for publication; forthcoming, expected 2027.

Examines the material role of the sea in constructing Taiwanese identity through foreign policy.

Book Chapter · Forthcoming

From Commission to Ministries: German Encounters in Taiwan’s Transitional Justice, 2016–2024.

In Ann Heylen & Jens Damm (eds.), Taiwan as a Contact Zone. Forthcoming.

Traces German engagement with Taiwan’s transitional-justice institutions from the Commission to ministerial structures.

Book Chapter · 2026

No End of a Disgrace: Guantanamo and the Justification of Human Rights Abuses by Russia and China.

Felix Brender, Matthew Heneghan & Hugh Sandeman. In Richard Kotter, Sara Birch, Hugh Sandeman & Andy Worthington (eds.), The Long Road to Closing Guantanamo: Action, Accountability and Justice. Ethics International Press, 2026, pp. 162–193.

Examines how Russia and China use Guantanamo to challenge U.S. human-rights credibility and deflect criticism, including Beijing’s Xinjiang narratives.

Book Chapter · Forthcoming

Introduction: Reconfiguring Taiwan Studies through Methodological Innovation.

Amélie Keyser-Verreault, Josie-Marie Perkuhn & Felix Brender. In A. Keyser-Verreault, J.-M. Perkuhn & F. Brender (eds.), Taiwan Studies Reconfigured: Islands of Inquiry. Routledge. Forthcoming.

Introduces the volume’s methodological approach to rethinking how Taiwan is studied.

Reference Entry

Transitional Justice.

In Hsin-huang Michael Hsiao (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Taiwan Studies. Brill, 2023.

Provides an overview of transitional justice in Taiwan and its political development.

Edited Volume · Forthcoming

Taiwan Studies Reconfigured: Islands of Inquiry.

Amélie Keyser-Verreault, Josie-Marie Perkuhn & Felix Brender (eds.). Routledge. Forthcoming.

Edited volume on methodological innovation and new approaches to Taiwan Studies.

Selected academic publications and accepted/in-press work. Titles link to official publisher or article pages where available.

Current Research & Pipeline

Articles under review

“Making Geopolitical Order Operational: Microgeopolitics and the Problem of Situated Participation” — under review at Millennium: Journal of International Studies.

“An Alternative to What? Developmental Peace and China's Changing Approach to Peacebuilding” — under review at Review of International Studies.

Article in preparation

“Performing Taiwan Internationally: ROC Rearticulation and Recognition beyond Recognition in Somaliland” — article in preparation. Examines how reciprocal diplomatic practice allows inherited ROC institutions to represent Taiwan and stabilise a Taiwan-centred diplomatic identity short of formal recognition; further interview fieldwork planned.

Book chapter submitted

“After Marriage Equality: LGBTQ Family Citizenship and Uneven Legal Reform during Tsai Ing-wen’s Second Term, 2020–2024” — chapter submitted to editors Isabelle Cockel and Sabella Ogbobode Abidde for Tsai Ing-wen and Taiwan: An Assessment of the Second Administration, 2020–2024; volume manuscript under review with Bloomsbury Academic.

Examines how LGBTQ equality became unevenly institutionalised across family law, migration, reproduction and legal gender recognition in Taiwan.

International & Fieldwork Profile

My academic training, research, fieldwork and professional practice span North America, Europe, Africa, the Gulf and East Asia. I trained in International Relations and anthropology in London, held research appointments in Paris and Pretoria, conducted sustained fieldwork in Juba and Taipei, and have worked professionally across the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Through this work, I have developed scholarly, policy and professional relationships across these regions. These relationships support comparative research, field access and collaboration across regional boundaries, and inform an approach to international politics that does not treat regions as self-contained cases.

London
Paris
Juba
Taipei
Boston
Pretoria
Dubai

Academic Community & Engagement

I contribute to academic community-building through editorial and commissioning work at LSE IDEAS / China Dialogues, and regularly chair, discuss and convene conference panels at EISA, ISA/ISSS and ASA.

I also have longstanding experience mentoring and supporting undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Teaching & Research Methods

I teach International Relations, global politics, diplomacy and international organisations at undergraduate and postgraduate level in the UK, continental Europe and China. My teaching connects theoretical debates with contemporary political problems, empirical research and policy practice.

My research is multilingual and fieldwork-driven, combining ethnographic fieldwork, semi-structured interviews, participant observation, discourse and document analysis, and multilingual primary-source research in Mandarin, English and Arabic.

Selected Teaching

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

International Organisation — Course Convenor & Lecturer · Undergraduate

Introduction to Diplomacy — Course Convenor & Lecturer · Undergraduate

London School of Economics and Political Science

Contemporary Issues in International Relations — Seminar Leader · BSc International Relations, LSE

Global Politics in the 21st Century — Seminar Leader · Undergraduate visiting programme, UC Davis at LSE

Theory and Practice of International Relations — Seminar Leader · Undergraduate visiting programme, Universidad Europea de Madrid at LSE

Heidelberg University

Conference Interpreting: German into English — Course Convenor & Lecturer · MA

Research Methods

Semi-structured Interviews · Participant Observation · Ethnographic Fieldwork · Discourse & Document Analysis · Multilingual Primary Sources · Mandarin / English / Arabic

Research Programmes & Projects

Casting the Security Net(Book Project · In Preparation)

Monograph in preparation; manuscript scheduled for submission to Palgrave Macmillan in November 2026.

Microgeopolitics(Theoretical Project)

Examines how geopolitical order becomes operational through situated actors, relationships and organisational practices, linking macro-level structures of power to everyday sites of political participation.

Partnerships under Pressure: Chinese Actors and the Everyday Negotiation of Gulf Security(Current Project)

When Chinese residents and firms in the UAE and Saudi Arabia need protection, how far do formal commitments deliver it, and when do relationships decide the outcome instead? Following trading networks that span Juba and Dubai, the project tests whether relational security holds where states are strong and rules are enforced. It builds on comparative work on how China acquires security influence in the Arab world without conventional alliances or formal guarantees.

Taiwan, Identity & Contested Political Order(Research Programme)

Research on how transitional justice, memory and political narratives shape Taiwanese identity, legitimacy and political community, alongside work on recognition, diplomacy, contested sovereignty and Taiwan–Somaliland relations.

Policy & Public Scholarship

I write regularly for specialist and policy audiences on China, Taiwan, security, diplomacy and Global South politics. As a Project Associate at LSE IDEAS / China Foresight (February 2023–August 2026), I commissioned and edited expert analysis for China Dialogues. This public-facing work brings scholarly research into conversation with contemporary international developments.

Selected policy and public scholarship. All listed items link to their original publication or platform.

Media & Expert Commentary

Diplomacy & Professional Practice

Alongside my academic work, I have more than a decade of experience as a conference interpreter and consultant in high-level diplomatic and multilateral settings, including security-related negotiations and Track 2 dialogues, with recurring work in the Gulf.

This work has given me sustained first-hand experience of the institutional and linguistic practices through which international politics is conducted. Bound by professional confidentiality, it informs the questions I ask—on negotiation, relationships, informal practice and the gap between formal policy and political action—rather than the data I use.

Selected Professional Roles

Consultant & Conference Interpreter — InOtherWords GmbH

2014–present

Strategic communication, multilingual advisory work and conference interpreting across governmental, international-organisational, academic and corporate settings.

Co-founder & Conference Interpreter — con:sens language professionals

2021–present

International conference delivery, coordination of multilingual teams, client relations and professional communication across complex institutional settings.

Practice Areas

Diplomacy · Multilateral Governance · Strategic Communication · Conference Interpreting · Cross-Cultural Communication · International Negotiation

Research

Fieldwork-driven research on international security, Global China, Taiwan and political order.

Policy

Analysis of China, Taiwan, diplomacy, security and international order for policy and specialist audiences.

Practice

Professional experience in diplomacy, conference interpreting and consulting.