Department of Political Science

Xu, Cheng

Dissertation:

It Takes A Village to Raise a Rebel: A Social Theory of Insurgent Mobilization

Biography

Cheng is a former Canadian Armed Forces infantry officer and paratrooper with the Third Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry. In 2014 he deployed on Roto 0 of Operation Reassurance in Central and Eastern Europe. As a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science, he is specializing in Comparative Politics, International Relations, and Development Studies. His doctoral thesis aims to develop a theory of the impacts of social relations on insurgent mobilization and civil war outcomes with a focus on the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Cheng is a Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholar and a Junior Fellow at Massey College. He served as the 2021-2022 Cadieux-Léger Fellow with Global Affairs Canada, under the Department’s Foreign Policy Research and Foresight Division where he provided research support for the its Strategic Gaming, Future of Diplomacy, and Feminist International Assistance Policy efforts. Cheng is also an Ambassador for the International Institute of Genocide and Human Rights.

Publications

Bertrand, Jacques and Cheng Xu. (Forthcoming). “Indigenous Groups and Ethnic Minorities.” In The Routledge Handbook on Civil Society in Southeast Asia, edited by Eva Hansson and Meredith Weiss. New York: Routledge.

Xu, Cheng Min. (2021). “Book Review: Collective & State Violence in Turkey: The Construction of a National Identity from Empire to Nation-State.” Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal 15, no. 1: 141–144. https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.15.1.1824.

Xu, Cheng. (2020). “Critical Barriers to Joint-Production: Datu Politics and Insurgent Fragmentation in Southern Philippines.” Third World Quarterly 41, no. 5: 881-897. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2020.1723411.

Xu, Cheng. (2019). “The Critical Impasse of Peacebuilding: Towards an Analytically Eclectic Critique of Liberal Peacebuilding.” International Journal 74, no. 4: 581-599. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020702019896302.

Xu, Cheng. (2018). “Nationalism, Necessary and Sufficient for Genocide? A Counterfactual Account through Comparative Case Study of Nazi German, Shōwa Japan, and Fascist Italy.” Genocide Studies International 12, no. 2: 234-252. https://doi.org/10.3138/gsi.12.2.07.

Xu, Cheng. (2018). “‘Draining the Sea’: Counterinsurgency as an Instrument of Genocide.” Genocide Studies International 12, no. 1: 6-25. https://doi.org/10.3138/gsi.12.1.02.

Research Interests

Insurgency movements;
Civil wars;
Mass political violence;
Genocide;
Ethnic conflict

Previous Degrees

MA in Global Development Studies (Queen’s University);
BA with Honours in Politics (Royal Military College of Canada)

Teaching Experience

POL378: Genocide in Comparative Perspectives (Course Instructor)