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Juking the Stats
Epigraph to my APSA 2011 paper. Prezbo: I don’t get it. All this so we score higher on the state tests? If we’re teaching the kids the test questions, what is it assessing in them? Grace Sampson:...
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NASA Banned from Working in China
From an email forwarded me from my NASA grant PI: The Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011 (P.L. 112-10), Section 1340(a), states, “None of the funds made available by this [Act] may be used...
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On Chinese Kleptocracy: Stationary versus Roving Bandits
Analysis of the John Hempton argument that “China is a kleptocracy.” The individuals that make up the regime in China steal, but they also think about maintaining control of the country over the...
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On Twitter as a City
Ai Weiwei remarked in August of 2012 for Foreign Policy’s “Cities Issue” that “Twitter is my city, my favorite city.” He continued: “I can talk to anybody I want to. And anybody who wants to talk to me...
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On Estimating the Probability of the End of the CCP Regime
I began my course on contemporary Chinese politics today with this. As a China scholar, I am often asked variants of the following: “When is China going to democratize?” or “When will the CCP going to...
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Defending the job talk
See Dan Nexon on the Duck of Minerva kicking off the discussion and Nate Jensen’s defense of the job talk. This then moved to twitter with interesting nuggets but with too few characters to discuss...
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Confidence, Austerity, and the Great Leap Forward
Policies that critically rely on belief in the policy’s effectiveness can lead to disaster. Those who questioned the Great Leap were attacked not only for attacking the party line but indeed for...
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On Chinese urbanization –城市化 vs. 城镇化
Bill Bishop sparked an interesting conversation with something that he caught and passed along in his Sinocism email from earlier this week. 李克强论城镇化|李克强|城镇化_21世纪网 - should we be paying more attention...
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Ideas, Interests, and Iteration
While blinking from the sunlight that enveloped me during one of the rare moments when I allow myself to come up from the “finish-the-book” cave, I happened upon a conversation about the relative...
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Chinese Groundhog Day
The joint sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a.k.a. the lianghui (两会), are a key event in the annual Chinese political...
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Sub-national Data in International Relations
We live in a complex world and tell all kinds of different stories about its machinations. Social science can be thought of as attempting to systematize and improve our knowledge of the way that the...
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Has China Reached a Turning Point? No. It’s reached four.
I was invited to participate in a symposium hosted at Quinnipiac University on “A Resurgent China.” The suggested topic was “Has China Reached a Tipping Point?” After ensuring that I could slightly...
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The Center, the People, and Development
It is difficult to move away from what is comfortable, especially when it has brought you much success. The Chinese party-state has pushed the level of GDP in the country to heights unknown previously...
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Metaphorical Economy
While Egypt’s regime is upended today, unlike some, this blog remains pivoted towards China. Over the weekend, a very nerdy but important twitter back and forth occurred between Noah Smith...
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A Middle Ground
State plans fail miserably, yet without state actions markets and economic development will not take place. This narrow path of industrial policy–but not too much–is what remains after contrasting Jim...
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Picturing Modernity in China’s Urbanization Drive
Fascinating pictures in the newest Ian Johnson NYT story on China’s urbanization, including these that are part of a government database tracking relocating families. The old home in black and white...
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Measured measures
Bill Bishop’s excellent Sinocism reminded me of a great anecdote from 2010. As the Wall Street Journal wrote at the time: BEIJING—China’s finance ministry changed the accounting of some government...
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Zooming out and Zooming in on China’s Cities
The Atlantic, The Aspen Institute, and Bloomberg Philanthropies are putting on a fun event on cities, CityLab: Urban Solutions to Global Challenges. Having written a book on the political role of...
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Multimedia Me
The nice people at Link Asia ran an interview with me looking into China’s urbanization plans. While it’s clear that I have a lot to learn about appearing on TV (sitting too close to the camera and...
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Student Blogging
I had my students write blog posts for class. Here’s what happened. Digital Natives? From NYT. While a fellow at Yale’s MacMillan Center for the academic year, I’m teaching a course on Contemporary...
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