I am a doctoral candidate in government at Harvard University. My primary research interests include ethnicity, political behavior, and public opinion, with a regional focus on East Asia and the Middle East. I received an A.M. in Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University in 2014 and a B.A. in Arabic and Economics (dual degree) from Peking University in 2012.
My dissertation, entitled "Engagement under Authoritarian Rule: Political Participation of Muslim Minorities in China," examines the political behavior of Chinese Muslim Minorities and seeks to understand why the Uyghurs are particularly disengaged from politics compared with the Hui Muslims and the Han majority. Using large-scale surveys, field experiments, and in-depth interviews, I unpack the patterns of political participation of Chinese Muslim minorities and their underlying mechanisms and identify a possible channel to political empowerment. I develop a theory of political behavior that identifies risk perception as the key to understanding how individuals decide whether and how to engage in politics in authoritarian regimes. Besides, I demonstrate that strengthened national identity and an increased sense of national and community duty can contribute to a shift in the political equilibrium that further leads to the Uyghurs’ active political engagement.
My research has been supported by the Desmond and Whitney Shum Fellowship, the Harvard Institute for Quantitative Social Science, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School, and the School of Public Affairs at Zhejiang University.