Welcome!

I am a 2008-09 postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University in the China & the World Program at the Woodrow Wilson School and an Associate Research Scholar at the MacMillan Center at Yale University. In July 2009, I will begin my appointment as assistant professor in the Political Science department at Yale.

My research interests include international relations, authoritarian regimes, and the politics of China and East Asia.

Dissertation

"Powerful Patriots: Nationalism, Diplomacy and the Strategic Logic of Anti-Foreign Protest"

How do public opinion and nationalist sentiment affect the foreign policy of China and other non-democratic states? I suggest that autocracies can gain diplomatic leverage by allowing anti-foreign demonstrations that may turn against the government and are increasingly costly to suppress. To evaluate the theory and its implications, I draw upon quantitative and qualitative data gathered over 12 months of field research in China, Hong Kong, and Japan, including more than 100 interviews with government officials, nationalist activists, protest participants, and foreign policy experts. >>