I am the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government (untenured) at Harvard University. My research focuses on two aspects of the politics of state building: 1) What contributes to the emergence of effective and durable statehood? 2) After an effective state emerges, how can it be constrained? My first book Tying the Autocrat’s Hands: The Rise of the Rule of Law in China (Cambridge University Press, 2015) addresses how an authoritarian state can be constrained. My second book The Rise and Fall of Imperial China: The Social Origins of State Development (Princeton University Press, 2022) examines how effective statehood emerges and endures. I received my B.A. from Peking University and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. From 2011 to 2015, I was Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.
This is my CV.