Frieder Dengler
Adjunct Instructor
International Service, School
Degrees
MPhil in International Relations, American University, 2022
MA in International Affairs, American University, 2017
BA in Political Science, Eberhard Karls Universität, Tübingen, Germany, 2014
Bio
Frieder Dengler is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at the American University’s School of International Service. His research interests include global governance and international organizations, historical international orders, and IR theory. Frieder's dissertation investigates early modern diplomatic encounters between imperial China and European polities. Specifically, he asks how polities embedded in distinct interpolity orders manage challenges arising from their differences. Using interpretive process tracing methodology, Frieder analyzes historiography and published reports, journals, and collections of primary documents detailing interactions between the Chinese imperial court and European envoys in the context of the Russian, Dutch, and British embassies to China during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He proposes that polities embedded in distinct interpolity orders respond to challenges stemming from divergent interpretations of diplomatic practices by creating conditions under which the significance of such practices can be maintained without necessarily resorting to violent conflict. Frieder's dissertation contributes to ongoing debates in the research on historical international orders by offering a new approach to studying encounters between different orders during a period frequently neglected by international relations scholars.
During the 2023-2024 academic year, Frieder was a US-Asia Grand Strategy Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California and a Peace Scholar Fellow with the United States Institute of Peace. He is a recipient of the 2023 ISA Dissertation Completion Fellowship.
