Rachel Ann Hulvey
胡瑞雪
Rachel Ann Hulvey is an Assistant Professor at Indiana University. Her research focuses on China’s influence on international order with an empirical focus on cyberspace. She has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Columbia China and the World and Harvard Belfer Center International Security programs.
Rachel Hulvey researches soft power, cyber governance, and Chinese foreign policy. She graduated with a PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania in 2024 and remains an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China.
Explaining changes in international order is one of the most important and enduring topics of international relations (Waltz 1979; Wendt 1999). Her book project, Mobilizing for Sovereignty: How China Gains Global Influence, takes up this task by examining China’s rise and influence on world order. How does China attempt to impact international order, and what strategies does it pursue to gain influence? Given these strategies, when is China successful?
As China rises, nowhere is great power competition for developing international order more active than cyberspace. But rather than the contest for control playing out on the battlefield, great powers compete to mobilize support in a competition about whose story wins. To attract support for developing new rules and institutions among United Nations members, President Xi Jinping directs officials to cultivate “discourse power” (话语权) on the world stage. Such investments in discourse power include a focus on crafting a compelling message. China strategically draws from sovereignty – a widely held and foundational value of statehood – to attract followers for China’s vision of order in cyberspace.
Rachel is a recipient of the American Political Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (2021-2023) and the Foreign Language Area Studies Award for Mandarin and East Asian study (2021-2022). Her research benefits from generous support from the University of Pennsylvania’s Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics and the Center for the Study of Contemporary China. She was a Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow (2019-2022), a Schmidt Futures International Strategy Forum Fellow (2022-2023), and a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow with the Notre Dame International Security Center (2024-2025). She is currently a non-resident fellow at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation.
Research
Research
Publications
Hulvey, Rachel, and Beth A. Simmons. 2025. “Borders in Cyberspace: Digital Sovereignty Through a Bordering Lens.” International Studies Quarterly 69 (3). https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqaf047
Globalization has consistently challenged the authority of territorial states, with the internet serving as a prominent site of this disruption. We use a bordering lens to understand how states have attempted to manage global information interdependence. States have used cyberborders—content removal, website blocking, and routing infrastructure—to create distinctions between foreign and domestic information environments. We show that efforts to control digital information are robustly correlated with the concept of “border orientation”—or the degree of a state’s efforts to filter the movement of people and goods into and out of their jurisdiction. Cyberborders are correlated with terrestrial, suggesting a common underlying preference for assertively managing globalization more generally. This research supplements existing analyses of digital censorship that highlight vertical state–society relationships with a focus on horizontal inside–outside bordering relationships. The evidence suggests that digital policies are deeply tied to broader preferences for managing globalization that do not correspond exclusively with regime type.
Arias, Sabrina B., and Rachel Hulvey. 2025. “China’s Leadership in the United Nations: Image Management and Institutional Legitimacy.” Review of International Organizations. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11558-025-09604-4
The public in democratic states increasingly views China as a threat. As China takes on leadership roles in key United Nations (UN) agencies, we examine how such positions affect its image in democratic societies where collaboration with China is often met with skepticism or rejection. We argue that a rising power can use IO leadership to improve its image among foreign publics. However, these efforts may have negative effects on the perceived legitimacy of IOs, which may be subsequently viewed as subject to major power capture. We test these expectations in pre-registered survey experiments in Brazil—a China-friendly case—and France—a China-skeptical case—finding that while China’s leadership of the UN enhances its image in the skeptical country context, it negatively affects IO legitimacy in both populations. To a lesser extent, US leadership of IOs also reduces their legitimacy, suggesting publics are also concerned about great power control of IOs broadly. These findings advance our understanding of China’s image management and IO legitimacy, contributing to broader debates on China’s growing role in global governance.
Working Papers
“Mobilizing for Sovereignty: Explaining Support for a China-Led Cyber Order”
How does China attract followers to its vision of international order? Traditional international relations theory expects China to fail to achieve its motivation to shape international collaboration and attract support. This article, grounded in sociological theory, introduces a framing theory of international influence focused on the impact of a rising power’s image and frame. A rising power has an image problem that limits its ability to attract followers. By directing the focus to shared values through a strategy of framing, a rising power can raise support for its vision of order and gain the power to reform the status quo. Using elite interviews in Shanghai and Beijing, I describe China’s approach of “discourse power” that uses the frame of cyber sovereignty to attract support for China’s proposals. Using a mixed-methods approach to analyzing the development of order in cyberspace through UN voting patterns, I test the efficacy of China’s approach using original UN Web TV data from international cybersecurity debates and an elite experiment with diplomats. This article finds that China’s message of cyber sovereignty is a frame that allows China to overcome its image problem and mobilize support for changes from the status quo. As China asserts its voice, this research suggests the potential for change across other issue areas.
“Norm Proprietorship: Theorizing China’s Global Advocacy” (with Stephanie Char)
China has increasingly projected its vision of global order through initiatives such as the Community of Shared Future and the Global Security, Development, and Civilization Initiatives. Yet these normative frameworks remain vague, lacking clear standards of appropriate behavior. This ambiguity raises a central question: why does China engage in international norm advocacy in the United Nations and other international organizations? Existing accounts of norm entrepreneurship largely focus on weak or middle powers seeking influence through moral authority. We introduce a novel theory of norm proprietorship to explain how rising powers instrumentalize international norm promotion to serve domestic legitimacy goals. Rather than seeking socialization or compliance alone, rising powers promote norms linked with domestic narratives abroad to signal the competence and global stewardship of ruling elites at home. Using original data on China’s bilateral and multilateral norm promotion efforts, combined with a survey experiment fielded among Chinese citizens, we map the logic and domestic reception of this strategy. Our findings show that norm proprietorship is a novel form of norm entrepreneurship – one that shifts the analytical lens from solely international objectives to the domestic motivations of rising powers.
Selected Works in Progress
“The Competition for Hearts and Minds: A Theory of Securitizing Soft Power” (with Siyao Li)
Book Reviews
Hulvey, Rachel. 2025. “The Art of State Persuasion: China’s Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes, by Francis Yaping Wang.” Political Science Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1093/psquar/qqaf105. Published October 6, 2025.
Policy and Legal Writing
“How America First Aids China’s Global Influence”, the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, China Focus Blog, January 16, 2025.
“Combatting Cybercrime”, U.S.-China Nexus Podcast. January 15, 2025.
“China’s Vision of Cyber Governance and Global Norms”, Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. April 8, 2024.
“Cyber Borders: Exercising State Sovereignty Online” with Beth Simmons, Temple Law Review Symposium, 2023.
“Companies as Courts? Google’s Role Deciding Human Rights Outcomes” Harvard Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2022.
“中国的网络安全法” 青年汉学家文集 (China’s Cybersecurity Law)”, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Young Sinologist Symposium, 2018.
“Cybersecurity as an Engine for Growth” New America, 2017.
Teaching Fellowships
War, Peace, and Strategy, Columbia University, Professor Richard Betts (2016)
Macroeconomics, Columbia University, Professor Thomas Groll (2017)
Chinese Politics, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Avery Goldstein (2019)
International Security, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Avery Goldstein (2020)
International Law, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Beth Simmons (2020)
American Foreign Policy, University of Pennsylvania, Professor Michael Horowitz (2021)
CV
Contact
Address
University of Pennsylvania Ronald O. Perlman Center for Political Science and Economics 133 S. 36th St, Philadelphia, PA, 19104
Rachel Ann Hulvey 