Kristen Hopewell is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Policy in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs and Director of the Liu Institute for Global Issues. She is also a former Director of the Centre for Chinese Research. Her research specializes in international trade, global governance, industrial policy and development, with a focus on emerging powers.

She is a Wilson China Fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

Dr. Hopewell is the author of Clash of Powers: US-China Rivalry in Global Trade Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2020) and Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project (Stanford University Press, 2016).

Her academic research has appeared in journals such as Review of International Political Economy, Regulation & Governance, International Affairs, Global Environmental Politics and New Political Economy.

Her policy writings have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, South China Morning Post, Nikkei Asia, The Globe and Mail, The Hill Times and Global Policy, and her analysis has featured in venues such as the BBC, CNN, CGTN, Bloomberg, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, The Chicago Tribune, East Asia Forum, The Indian Express, Latin America Advisor and Foreign Policy.

Dr. Hopewell’s research has been supported by a Fulbright Fellowship, a UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Future Research Leaders Grant, the UK Global Research Challenges Fund, US National Science Foundation (NSF), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), and Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Prior to entering academia, she worked as a trade official for the Canadian government and as an investment banker for Morgan Stanley.

Books

Hopewell, Kristen. 2020. Clash of Powers: US-China Rivalry in Global Trade Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2016. Breaking the WTO: How Emerging Powers Disrupted the Neoliberal Project. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Journal Articles

Hopewell, Kristen. 2024. “The Surprise Return of Development Policy Space in the Multilateral Trading System: What the WTO Appellate Body Blockage Means for the Developmental State.” Review of International Political Economy 31(4): 1245-1270.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2024. “Global Power Shifts and the Cotton Subsidy Problem: How Emerging Powers Became the New Kings of Cotton Subsidies.” Global Studies Quarterly 4(2).

Sumaila, U Rashid, Colette CC Wabnitz, Louise SL Teh, Lydia CL Teh, Vicky WY Lam, Haske Sumaila, William WL Cheung, Ibrahim Issifu, Kristen Hopewell and Joshua E Cinner. 2024. “Utilizing Basic Income to Create a Sustainable, Poverty-Free Tomorrow.” Cell Reports Sustainability. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crsus.2024.100104.

Hopewell, Kristen and Matias Margulis. 2023. “Global trade rules threaten food security amid climate shocks.” Earth Systems Governance 18 (December).

Hopewell, Kristen. 2023. “Balancing, Threats & Wedges in International Political Economy: The Origins and Impact of the Sino-Indian Alliance at the WTO.” Journal of Contemporary China 32(141): 369-385.

Hopewell, Kristen and Matias Margulis. 2023. “Outdated WTO rules hamper public food stockholding.” Nature Food.

Margulis, Matias, Kristen Hopewell and Edi Qereshniku*. 2023. “Food, Famine & the Free Trade Fallacy: The Dangers of Market Fundamentalism in an Era of Climate Emergency.” Journal of Peasant Studies 50(1): 215-239. (*MPPGA student)

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “How China Lost its Wolf Pack: The Fracturing of the Emerging Power Alliance at the WTO.” International Affairs 98(6): 1915–35.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “Emerging Powers, Leadership and South-South Solidarity: The Conflict over Special and Differential Treatment at the WTO.” Global Policy 13(4): 469-482.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “The Untold Victims of China’s Trade Policies.” The Washington Quarterly 45(1): 151-166.

Quark, Amy, Kristen Hopewell, and Elias Alsbergas. 2022. “Inter-State Competition and Transnational Capitalists across the North-South Divide: Different Strategies, New Configurations of Power.” Social Problems 69(2): 418-435.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “Beyond US-China Rivalry:  Rule Breaking, Economic Coercion and the Weaponization of Trade.” American Journal of International Law, AJIL Unbound Symposium 116: 58-63.

Hopewell, Kristen, and Matias Margulis. 2022. “Emerging Economy Subsidies Undermining Sustainability of Global Fisheries.” Nature Food 3, 2-3.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “Heroes of the Developing World? Emerging Powers in WTO Agriculture Negotiations and Dispute Settlement.” Journal of Peasant Studies 49(3):561-87.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2021. “When the Hegemon Goes Rogue:  Leadership Amid the US Assault on the Liberal Trading Order.” International Affairs 97(4): 1025-1042.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2021. “Power Transitions and Global Trade Governance: The Impact of a Rising China on the Export Credit Regime.” Regulation & Governance 15(3): 634-652.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2021. “Strategic Narratives in Global Trade Politics: American Hegemony, Free Trade and the Hidden Hand of the State.” Chinese Journal of International Politics 14(1):51-86.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2021. “Trump & Trade: The Crisis in the Multilateral Trading System.” New Political Economy 26(2): 271-82.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2019. “US-China Conflict in Global Trade Governance:  The New Politics of Agricultural Subsidies at the WTO.” Review of International Political Economy 26(2): 207-231.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2019. “How Rising Powers Create Governance Gaps: The Case of Export Credit and the Environment.” Global Environmental Politics 19(1): 34-52.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2018. “Recalcitrant Spoiler? Contesting Dominant Accounts of India’s Role in Global Trade Governance.” Third World Quarterly 39(3): 577-593.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2017. “The BRICS – Merely a Fable? Emerging Power Alliances in Global Trade Governance.” International Affairs 93(6): 1377-96.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2017. “When Market Fundamentalism and Industrial Policy Collide: The Tea Party and the US Export-Import Bank.” Review of International Political Economy 24(4): 569-598.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2017. “The Liberal International Economic Order on the Brink.” Current History 116(793): 303-08.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2017. “Invisible Barricades: Civil Society and the Discourse of the WTO.” Globalizations 41(1): 51-65.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2016. “The Accidental Agro-Power: Constructing Comparative Advantage in Brazil.” New Political Economy 21(6): 536-554.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2015. “Multilateral Trade Governance as Social Field: Global Civil Society and the WTO.” Review of International Political Economy. 22(6): 1128-58.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2015. “Different Paths to Power: The Rise of Brazil, India and China at the WTO.” Review of International Political Economy. 22(2): 311-338.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2014. “The Transformation of State-Business Relations in an Emerging Economy: The Case of Brazilian Agribusiness.” Critical Perspectives on International Business 10(4): 291-309. (Special issue on Brazilian corporations and the state.)

Hopewell, Kristen. 2013. “New Protagonists in Global Economic Governance: Brazilian Agribusiness at the WTO.” New Political Economy 18(4): 602-623.

Book Chapters

Hopewell, Kristen. 2023. “Tumult in the Trading System: The China Paradox, Declining US Institutional Power, and the Crisis at the WTO,” in Gao, Henry, Damian Raess, and Ka Zeng, eds. China and the WTO: A 20-Year Assessment. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2022. “The Impact of China’s Trade Policies on Other Developing Countries:  Agriculture and Fisheries Subsidies,” in Denmark, Abraham M. and Lucas Meyers, eds. Essays on the Rise of China and its Implications. Washington DC, Wilson Center.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2020. “Ideology, Economic Interests and American Exceptionalism: The Case of Export Credit,” in Singh, J. P., ed. Cultural Values in Political Economy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2017. “A Changing Role for Agriculture in Global Political Economy? Brazil’s Rise as an Agro-Power,” in Margulis, M. E., ed. The Global Political Economy of Raúl Prebisch. Routledge RIPE Series in Global Political Economy. New York, Routledge: 155-71.

Hopewell, Kristen. 2009. “The Technocratization of Protest: Transnational Advocacy Organizations and the WTO,” in Fastenfest, D., ed. Engaging Social Justice: Critical Studies of 21^st Century Social Transformation. Leiden, Brill: 161-180.

Selected Policy Writings

“The World is Abandoning the WTO: And America and China are Leading the Way.” Foreign Affairs, October 2024.

“Canada must show leadership in backing Taiwan’s Pacific trade bid,” The Globe and Mail, December 2023.

“The BRICS Resurgence,” Australian Institute for International Affairs, November 2023.

“Canada’s CPTPP Leadership in 2024: Managing the Rival Accession Bids of China and Taiwan.” Canadian Global Affairs Institute, November 2023.

The Multilateral Trading System in Crisis: EU-Canada Leadership and Collaboration, Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung Foundation, June 2022.

“The real victims of China’s subsidies.” East Asia Forum, June 2022.

“China looms behind regional trade agreements.” East Asia Forum, December 2021.

“CPTPP members must be wary of China’s attempt to join trade pact.” Nikkei Asia, October 2021.

“Canada must oppose China’s entry to Trans-Pacific trade pact.” The Hill Times, October 2021.

“Would China’s move to join this transpacific trade pact push the U.S. to rejoin? It’s complicated.” The Washington Post, September 2021.

“China’s Cotton Subsidies Immiserate Farmers in the World’s Poorest Countries.” Asia Dispatches, The Wilson Center, Washington, DC, September 2021.

“The WTO is negotiating to solve a global fisheries crisis. Here’s what’s at stake.” The Washington Post, July 2021.

“EU the new kingpin in global trade order.” The Interpreter, July 2021.

“15 countries just signed the world’s largest trade pact. The US isn’t one of them.” The Washington Post, November 2020.

“China has a golden opportunity to show global leadership, with a WTO fisheries deal.” South China Morning Post, October 2020.

“Why trade restrictions must be eliminated during COVID-19’s second wave.” The Conversation, October 2020. Co-authored with MPPGA student Joshua Tafel.

“Canada must boost its foreign aid to combat a COVID-19 humanitarian crisis.” The Globe and Mail, May 2020.

“Can a new leader revitalize the World Trade Organization?” Latin America Advisor. Inter-American Dialogue, Washington, DC, May 2020.

“The WTO just ruled against China’s agricultural subsidies. Will this translate to a big U.S. win?” The Washington Post, March 2019.

“What is ‘Made in China 2025’ — and why is it a threat to Trump’s trade goals?” The Washington Post, May 2018.

“Why the US Needs the ExIm Bank,” Foreign Affairs, August 2017.

“Reshaping World Trade: The Export Finance of the Emerging Economies,” Commentary, Emerging Global Governance Series, Global Policy, December 2016.

“Rising Powers and the Collapse of the Doha Round,” UN World Institute for Development Economics Research (WIDER) Blog, October 2016.