Thrilled that my book was reviewed alongside Ruixue Jia and Hongbin Li' new book on the gaokao in the LA Review of Books lareviewofbooks.org/article/mani...

My colleague, Dr. Vahid Abedini, was illegally detained by ICE on Saturday. He is currently being held without a court date in sight, despite being in the country legally. Please spread the word! We must ensure his due process rights are upheld. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-prof...

The White House has ordered the US Dept. of Justice to prioritize denaturalization: voiding the citizenship of US citizens. Who will it denaturalize? "Any" case that it "determines to be sufficiently important". Point 10 leaves the criteria opaque and arbitrary. substack.com/redirect/169...

As the academic year comes to a close, I am delighted to reflect on all that happened this year, even in these stressful times. My book came out in October, completing a decade long research and writing process.

This link should work docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

*is likely experiencing a rapid acceleration in...

This is a sickening and illegal perversion of power. The damage being done right now is incomprehensibly large and permanent. Carving out the heart of Americans’ future.

5. This is of course directly in line with the Project 2025 vision of destroying expertise, institutional knowledge, and independent thought within the federal agencies so as turn the entire federal government into an extension of the President's agenda.

The Fulbright Hays program was essential for supporting me while I did fieldwork for my PhD. Every day, a new blow for the furtherance of science and research. www.insidehighered.com/news/global/...

One of the small ways you can have an impact: comment opposing the politicization of career civil servants. This proposal would dramatically accelerate the politicization of a huge range of federal offices, including the politicization of scientific research.

Oops the pasted link didn’t work. Here it is www.higheredjobs.com/region/detai...

By the way, we are searching for a postdoc for China-focused data analysis at our China Data Lab, would love to have you join us! higheredjobs.com/region/details…

A 50% cut to science funding (which is close to what Trump is proposing for NIH) would result in huge negative long-term economic outcomes: *7.6% cut in GDP *8.6% cut in federal revenues *equivalents of making the average American $10,000 poorer

We invite you to submit presentations for Fall 2025. We welcome working papers by scholars at various career stages, using any method, in the fields of comparative politics and international relations. Please fill out the form below by May 15:

🤝 Come work with us! APARC is #hiring: 🔸 A full-time China Program Coordinator 🔸 A full-time Center Administrative Associate 🔸 A research assistant for a project on the economics of robotics in nursing homes in Japan (for Stanford students only) Learn more ⬇️

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

NSF's new research "priorities" seems absurd: research should not "directly/indirectly exclude individuals or groups. Research projects with more narrow impact limited to subgroups of people based on protected class or characteristics do not effectuate NSF priorities." www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

jesus christ they want her dead

Sometimes I feel like I've woken up in another authoritatian country I know well...

Xiaojun Li and I have a new article in @scidjournal.bsky.social. China's economic growth has slowed. We use a survey experiment to examine the effects of state media messaging on who and what people blame for their difficulties. #chinasky #china 🧵 link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1. For the past thirty years I've had the best job in the world. 
I've had the opportunity to follow my curiosity; explore the workings of nature and society; mentor students and junior colleagues in the same process; and teach generations of students about it all.

I wish university leaders would a) read this, and b) reconsider their silence. This administration is coming for higher education. Failing to point out the illegality, the violation of basic legal rights, and attacks on research and what they mean isn't going to save us.

Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back From Brink Of Courage

This is who was fired from the union workforce at the Department of Education yesterday. Every single number is a person who served the nation and whose life was wrongly disrupted. That's the first tragedy, but it's clearly not the only one.

We condemn in the strongest possible terms any university that would sacrifice its own students to the demands of an authoritarian government. This is absolute cowardice & capitulation to an administration hellbent on the destruction of American higher education. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/13/n...

I’m told this is a real letter. It basically says, “We’ll destroy Columbia unless you destroy it first.”

Since the 1950s, Summer Language Workshops at Indiana University have provided training in Russian, East European, and Central Asian languages. Generations have come to Bloomington to study Romanian, Polish, Kazakh, etc. Rubio just cancelled all of them languageworkshop.indiana.edu/summer-langu...

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

Lots of leaders of colleges and other key institutions are staying silent, either out of fear or a misguided view of "neutrality." But not Michael Roth. wapo.st/4k1ueQt

Trump and Musk are so misinformed about South Africa's Expropriation Act that white nationalists in South Africa are correcting them. Read @carolyneholmes.bsky.social in @goodauth.bsky.social: goodauthority.org/news/misinfo...

Some strategists think Dems shouldn't defend USAID because foreign aid is unpopular But this @goodauth.bsky.social piece shows strong support for many types of aid Americans also dislike changes to status quo and are increasingly concerned about Musk's influence goodauthority.org/news/how-dem...

In the Soviet Bloc, the Communist Party assigned political minders/ commissars to every school, factory, army unit, etc to ensure ideological compliance and loyalty to the regime. Hiring was based on class background and demonstrated loyalty. Obviously, this is very different.

Pleased to announce my latest article: Variation in FDI in China leads to variation in urbanization through China's hukou and welfare systems.

"Around 10,000 research grants have been flagged for review... Grants in one area... are being distributed to directors in a separate area of science... the geosciences division is examining grants from the division of social, behavioural and economic sciences" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

20 notable 2024 China books; shouts out to & summaries of 10 non-fiction titles (eg ones by @chinarhyming.bsky.social @ewong.bsky.social @tsmullaney.bsky.social & Yuan Yang) & 10 lit in translation ones (blurbs for those by @sabinak.bsky.social among others) chinabooksreview.com/2024/12/19/b...

In Manipulating Authoritarian Citizenship, Samantha A. Vortherms examines the crucial case of China—where internal citizenship regimes control who can and cannot become a local citizen through the household registration system. #ReadUP www.sup.org/books/politi...

There is no chance that this will turn out to be a terrible idea www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Very excited we will be hiring in political theory, with a specialization in gender and political theory. Please encourage people to apply! www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/083947-...

Are you a student passionate about social sciences and research? Join NORC's nine-week summer program! This paid internship offers invaluable hands-on experience in survey research, data analysis, and methodology.    careers.norc.org/en-us/job/50...

Breaking News: A 5.9-magnitude earthquake in northwestern China has killed at least 111 people and injured more than 200, Chinese state media reported.

I'm looking to hire a part-time grad student research assistant/lab manager this spring for the Policing Lab at Hamilton College. More details about the lab are here: www.hamiltonpolicinglab.com. Please help spread the word! cc polisky, intsec, dictatorsky

it's wild that R, the ubiquitous statistical computing language, was co-created by a Māori prof (Ross Ihaka) — and yet the vast majority of scientists who use R don't know this is like inventing the toaster. possibly the largest impact of a single member of an indigenous community on modern science

Many thanks to CSIS for hosting this wonderful discussion about the 10th anniversary edition of my book LEFTOVER WOMEN: THE RESURGENCE OF GENDER INEQUALITY IN CHINA. We get into China’s plummeting birth rates, young women rejecting marriage, repression under Xi Jinping.. www.csis.org/events/lefto...

Nearly 10 years after national urbanization reforms picked up hype about dissolving the Chinese hukou, reforms stall in the face of competing economic and security interests, and the floating population is larger than ever. www.reuters.com/world/china/...