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Sean Kenji Starrs profile

Sean Kenji Starrs

Lecturer in International Development

Contact details

Biography

Sean Kenji (賢司) Starrs joined the Department of International Development in September 2022. Previously, he was at City University of London and from 2014-2021, the Department of Asian and International Studies at City University of Hong Kong. He was also a visiting assistant professor at the Center for International Studies at MIT, and received his PhD at York University, Toronto, under the late (and great) Leo Panitch. Sean is the love-child of globalization, being born in Vancouver to a British father, Japanese mother and having also lived in the United States, Denmark, Japan, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. He does not regret abandoning his dream of becoming an archaeologist.

He has written for and/or been interviewed by Bloomberg News, The Financial Times, Politico, South China Morning Post, local Hong Kong radio and TV, Voice of America, Jacobin, The Real News, among others, on many topics ranging from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests to Oxfam’s report on inequality, Marxism in China to Brexit, US hegemony to the capitalist rise of China. Noam Chomsky has claimed Sean is “one of the most important political economists in the world”, and cites his work often, including in The Economist and Truthdig.

Research

Sean is interested in studying the nature of globalization/ global capitalism and national power (particularly China vs the US), with its many implications on international development and inequality, via the lens of critical political economy.

Noam Chomsky offered the following blurb for Sean’s upcoming book: "Conventional estimates of economic power rely on national accounts, primarily GDP. But these measures have lost their significance in the new age of globalization, this compelling study persuasively argues, showing that by the more realistic measure of ownership of the global economy, US power has reached astonishing heights. These carefully documented conclusions undermine laments about American declinism and the rise of China. A major and original contribution to understanding the actual distribution of power in the world order."

Research Interests

  • The Capitalist Rise of China and other BRICS
  • US Hegemony and World Order
  • Techno-Nationalism (especially regarding semiconductors) and Globalization
  • East Asian Political Economy and the Developmental State
  • State Theory, Geopolitics of Capital, and Critical Political Economy

Teaching

  • 7YYDN002 States, Markets and the Institutional Basis of Growth
  • 5YYD0007 China and Development 

PhD Supervision

Sean will supervise PhD candidates on any of the research topics mentioned above, especially on the capitalist rise of China, US hegemony, and critical political economy. 

 

Research

international political economy research group resized
The International Political Economy Research Group

International Political Economy research group focuses on the examination of contemporary socioeconomic and political dynamics of crisis and limitations of European and global order.

Research

international political economy research group resized
The International Political Economy Research Group

International Political Economy research group focuses on the examination of contemporary socioeconomic and political dynamics of crisis and limitations of European and global order.