Cheng-Chia Tung is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Economy at King’s College London. His research focuses on military and economic confrontations, as well as the governance of interstate coalitions such as military alliances and trade blocs. He is currently investigating the ethics of coalition membership, with particular attention to the normative justification for including or excluding non-democratic states.

His work also examines the applicability of just war theory to economic sanctions. He has presented, or been invited to present, his research at institutions including the University of Oxford, the University of Minho in Portugal, and National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. At King’s, he served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, facilitating weekly seminars, providing feedback on assessments, and holding regular office hours for both a first-year compulsory module on political theory and a third-year advanced module on politics and justice in international law.

Prior to joining King’s, he worked as an Assistant Research Fellow at a policy-oriented think tank, where he contributed to Taiwan’s engagement with Southeast and South Asian countries. He holds an MSc in International Political Theory from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Diplomacy and French from National Chengchi University.

Research interests

• Contemporary political theories
• Democratic theories
• Collective self-determination
• Ethics of war
• Global distributive justice
• International relations

Teaching

• Introduction to Political Theory (4SSPP104) 2024–2025, 2025–2026
• Politics And Justice in International Law (6SSPP353) 2026

PhD supervisors

Dr Mollie Gerver, Dr Carmen Pavel and Dr Jonathan Leader Maynard