Welcome!

I am an assistant professor at the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science, National Tsing Hua University. My research lies at the intersection of political economy, institutions, and behavior, with a substantive focus on redistribution, courts, and propaganda in authoritarian regimes. Geographically, my work concentrates on China and Taiwan. My research has been published or is forthcoming in Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, and Political Behavior. I received my PhD from Emory University in 2024.

My research revolves around this central question: How do autocrats survive in power when threats from elites and the masses escalate and collide? I answer this question by focusing on elite-mass conflict arising from progressive redistribution (e.g., pro-worker legislation). My work delves into the strategies employed by autocrats to resolve the distributional dilemma, with an emphasis on courts and propaganda as the autocrat’s solutions. Drawing on fine-grained data from China and robust cross-national evidence, I provide new insights into two fundamental puzzles of the political economy of authoritarianism: (1) why autocrats redistribute and (2) when autocratic redistribution bolsters the regime rather than backfires.

In a related, secondary agenda, I have conducted and developed policy-relevant research projects on the domestic politics of Taiwan, a case of growing significance with profound implications for democratic consolidation and regional security amid the rise of China.

Before coming to Emory, I received my M.A. and B.A. degrees in political science from National Taiwan University. I was an exchange student at Tsinghua University in China, where I found my intellectual passion in autocratic politics, labor, welfare, and comparative political economy.

You can contact me via email: wanghy@mx.nthu.edu.tw