Katherine Morton, BA (Hons), MA (Sussex), PhD (ANU)
Fellow, Department of International Relations

Tel: +61 2 6125 2472
Fax: +61 2 6125 8010
Email: katherine.morton@anu.edu.au
Location: Room 2.07, Hedley Bull Centre

Biographical Statement

Dr Katherine Morton is a specialist on China and Global Politics with over a decade of experience working on environmental problems at the local, national, and international levels. She has a particular interest in the development of equitable solutions, both globally and locally, that reconcile environmental protection with development needs. Her book on International Aid and China's Environment was the first academic study on the effectiveness of international ideas and practices in building capacity to address environmental problems in China. For the past six years she has been conducting research on the Tibetan Plateau looking at the emergence of environmentalism and more recently the local and regional impacts of climate change. Other research projects include a study on the domestic drivers of China's response to global environmental cooperation, the role of indigenous knowledge and creativity in responding to climate change; and regional environmental security in the Himalayas. She is also the Chief Investigator in a Ford Foundation-funded collaborative research project on Sino-Australian security relations. She speaks French, Italian, Mandarin, intermediate Japanese, and she is now learning Tibetan.

Dr Morton is currently a Senior Associate Member of St Antony's College, Oxford University, where she is spending her sabbatical until July 2009.

Research Interests

China and the world; global environmental governance; the role and influence of NGOs in world politics; and non-traditional and human security.

Key Publications

• 'Sustainability and Underdevelopment: Complex Tradeoffs on the Tibetan Plateau’, International Journal of Environmental, Cultural, Economic and Social Sustainability, 5(1) May 2009.
• 'China and Environmental Security in the Age of Consequences’, Asia-Pacific Review, 15(2) November 2008: 52-67.
• 'Transnational Advocacy at the Grassroots: Benefits and Risks of International Cooperation’, in Peter Ho and Richard Louis Edmonds, eds, China’s Embedded Activism: Opportunities and Constraints of a Social Movement, New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 195-215.
• 'Civil Society and Marginalisation: Grassroots NGOs in Qinghai Province’, in Heather Xiaoquan Zhang, Bin Wu, and Richard Sanders, eds, Marginalisation in China: Perspectives on Transition and Globalisation, Aldershot: Ashgate 2007, pp. 239-56.
• 'Surviving an Environmental Crisis: Can China Adapt?’, Brown Journal of World Affairs, 13(1) Fall/Winter 2006: 63-75.
• International Aid and China’s Environment: Taming the Yellow Dragon, Routledge Studies on China in Transition, London and New York: Routledge, 2005.

Career Highlights

Dr Morton previously worked for Matsushita Electric and Industry Corporation Ltd in Osaka, Japan. She was also the Deputy Director of the East Asia Programme at the University of Sussex, England, and worked in Europe as a consultant on emerging markets and political developments in East Asia. She has travelled extensively in Asia working in Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, and China.