Moravcsik has had a very diverse and eclectic career. Before going to graduate school, he worked as a trade negotiator, a German translator, a classical music critic and a business consultant, among other things.

This diversity extends to Moravcsik's scholarly research. Some of the topics he has written on include foreign development aid, liberal political theory, Japanese views of world politics and the foreign policies of Woodrow Wilson and Charles de Gaulle.

"Like most of my colleagues, I have lots of stories about fascinating people and events. But the deepest satisfactions of scholarship are often solitary, or shared only with a few. For me, they stem mostly from empirical research," Moravcsik says.

"I find great satisfaction in bringing just a little more order to the almost intractably complex and ironic flow of human history."

MacFarquhar praised Moravcsik's research. "His most recent book was a path-breaking study...He is a first-rate and prolific scholar on Western Europe and acknowledged to be the leader in his field both in the US and Western Europe."

Johnston, who is working this year at Stanford University, is also widely considered to be at the top of his field.

"Iain Johnston is unquestionably the leading specialist to combine enormous expertise on Chinese foreign relations with a superb knowledge of international relations theory," he says.