This was a lot of fun! Thanks so much, @warontherocks.bsky.social!

Second leg of APSA2025. Presenting joint work on geopolitics and democratization in Taiwan Saturday 2pm, and then book roundtable Sunday 10am for @lnachman32.bsky.social and his new book “Contested Taiwan: Sovereignty, Social Movements, and Party Formation.” Hope to see you there!

interesting retrospection on cross-strait relations lately. from Lin Chong-pin, ex deputy defense minister of the ROC: The Tsai admin's proposal to re-initiate cross strait talks early in her presidency was quasi rebuffed by Beijing, due to a combo of interpersonal relations behind the scenes. 1/6

LOL

A great service to anyone who will want to work with this data down the road. A big thank-you to whoever did this.

Doing the lord’s work. Back on the syllabus next semester!

a meticulous revisiting of Yuhua Wang's 2022 APSR piece by @linsantu.bsky.social on Song dynasty kinship networks and state building. Bookmarked.

wgntv.com/news/pope-le... South Side!

consider, they picked whichever Pope would piss off Vance the most

NOVA KNICKS BRUNSON, BRIDGES, HART, POPE LEO XIV

surprisingly smooth democratic transition at the Vatican

quote: "It’s rare that in retrospect US foreign policy failures turn out to be the result of listening too carefully to area specialists. Avoiding rule by experts doesn’t imply destroying all expertise, nor does pursuing efficiency require gutting valuable institutions for a pittance of savings."

It's the 10 year anniversary of this post about another leader trying to talk with was out of and into a stock market crisis. goodauthority.org/news/the-pol...

I have never watched "The White Lotus" but I'm glad American TV is finally paying attention to this anti-Qing Buddhist revolutionary movement.

Gave a talk to our PhD students today, and feeling appreciative of all the recent methods work on improving common practices. Thanks to all the authors who work to make their work accessible, especially on social media. A few articles we discussed:

South Korea survived this democratic challenge. What’s next? The impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol is a critical first step in reversing the country’s authoritarian slide. goodauthority.org/news/south-k...

Also an important lesson from Chinese politics (e.g. XJP's zero-COVID policy): if you insist that everything is your political responsibility alone, then it becomes very hard to wriggle yourself out of blame.

'Neo-feudalism' should be the next great IR school

The pivot to clientelism in all its forms is something to behold. Yes, vote buying, but also patronage hiring into the state, tariffs and exec orders as threats from which to selectively "forbear" in return for political submission, withholding funds from opposition strongholds - the whole package

As @cpsjournal.bsky.social editor I read about 100 peer-reviews per month. A 🧵 on what makes a great review: 1.) Succinct summary of the contribution (puzzle, argument, data, evidence) 2.) State clearly in your first paragraph whether the evidence supports the argument.

If I knew how to photoshop, I would do an overlay picture of Lin Biao with Elongated Muskrat www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/u...

no notes

Out of all the crazy things happening right in the world now, a bombshell revelation from Taiwan: we now have definitive proof that the PRC attempted to influence a major political party during the 2024 presidential/legislative elections: mirrormedia.mg/story/202502.... Thoughts: 1/6

some enterprising journalist/phd student should definitely apply...

New publication to wrap up the end of 2024: in this piece with Lynette Ong, we take a stab at answering whether stability maintenance system in China over the years have succeeded in its professed goal of preventive repression. Thanks in advance for reading! www.worldscientific.com/doi/10.1142/...

There’s something bleakly funny about the hard-headed realist discovering late in life that sometimes authoritarians are bad, but it would be much funnier if the consequences didn’t mostly fall on better people.

I am increasingly convinced that comparative politics (including especially me) has fundamentally misunderstood contemporary democratic backsliding. We are attending to elections and the rule of law, when the politics is more fundamental, about a vision for the state and society within it 1/x

PASSED impeachment motion against President Yoon Voting results - 204 yes - 85 no - 3 abstained - 8 invalid Graphic below: 🟡Voting Turnout & What's Next? Resources: 🟢 Timeline of events: shorturl.at/ReGnA 🟣 Koreanists 🇰🇷 to follow: go.bsky.app/U3Nm5FX #MartialLaw #SouthKorea #Impeachment Repost🫡

something something past is present

Korea's preeminent *conservative* paper of record exclusively reports that President Yoon ordered someone at the National Intelligence Service (Korean CIA) to arrest the head of his own party (who would later vote against martial law) and when the NIS man refused, ordered his dismissal.

South Korea’s 707th Special Mission Group and the 1st Airborne Brigade, trained for things like anti-terrorism operations, found themselves deployed against unarmed civilians at the Nat. Assembly. Chosun Ilbo has published anonymized interviews with some deployed. www.chosun.com/national/nat...

Wrong headline, NYT. Should read: Impeachment Vote Foiled by Boycott from Yoon's Allies. Ruling party refused to hold the President accountable for what most South Koreans believe was an act of treason. That's the ruling party's failure -- not the opposition's.

Not sure if anybody's surprised at anything anymore. But MBC reports that Def. Min. ordered to strike N. Korea for sending the 'trash balloon' about one week before the coup attempt. The chairman of the joint chief of staff refused it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggr3...

In an explainer for @goodauth.bsky.social, I share some historical and contemporary context to martial law in South Korea and Yoon's botched attempt yesterday. goodauthority.org/news/martial...

congrats to Lev for this must read book on Taiwanese politics!

President Yoon Suk-yeol declared martial law in South Korea, citing alleged anti-state activities by opposition forces. This extremely surprising move grants the military authority over civilian affairs. Why did this happen? Some context and thoughts are below. apnews.com/article/sout...

I am reminded of this absolutely unhinged Radiolab episode in which Richard Posner defended the Japanese internment camps: www.law.uchicago.edu/news/richard...

Shameless but relevant plug: in this piece on the revolutionary bureaucracy in the early PRC, I argue that agents in an autocracy can be perceived as disloyal precisely because they are incompetent. Depends how you define 'competency.' link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Many of the headlines you will see will name Benny Tai and Joshua Wong. But there are 43 others who have been jailed, including a 68 yr-old socialist known as Long Hair and a 67 yr-old former journalist known affectionately as Auntie Mo. Yet others are unfamiliar to non-Hongongers.

"Bombard the Headquarters!" - Mao, 1966

Will be moderating an online panel "The American Election Results: The View from Taipei" at Harvard Fairbank Center with Steve Goldstein, Christina Lai (Sinica), and Andrew Nien-dzu Yang (CAPS) *today* Monday at 8pm EST / Tuesday 9 am Taipei time. Register: fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/events/the-a...

political culture is built on top of much longer time horizons than elections might lead one to believe. many a political battle is won and lost generationally

This shows you what qualitative data gathering (aka field work) can do to inform you on how to interpret more general quantitative data.

Upcoming: Sigur Center's China Peripheries Seminar! Zoom series on pressing contemporary issues re: Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang/East Turkestan, and Islam in China. Speakers are all scholars with extensive on-the-ground experience who take on their topics from critical perspectives. Sign up:

numerous friends on wechat are sharing this somewhat cryptic article written months before former premier Li Keqiang's death; the almost secretive nature of public commemoration is pretty telling mp.weixin.qq.com/s/TsmUfedTPT...

#HPE data resource alert!

absolutely struggling with the long title for my chinese politics class next semester. what I have right now: POL3473 Chinese Politics: you will learn about a lot of political campaigns and how to properly pronounce 'Xi' and not to refer to Mao as 'Zedong' in your assignments