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Research and Teaching Interest:
- Chinese politics (elite politics and grassroots politics)
- Civil society, social capital, and social organization
- Civic Engagement Education
- International Relations with a focus on East Asia
- Disaster response and crisis management
- Global environmental politics with a focus on hydro-politics
- International Political Economy
Courses Taught:
- Senior Seminar in Political Science [Syllabus]
- International Political Economy [Syllabus]
- East Asian Politics [Syllabus]
- Comparative and International Politics [Syllabus]
- People Power and Change: Leadership as a Practice [Syllabus]
- The Rise of China [Syllabus]
- Public Policy and State-Society Relations [Syllabus]
- Readings in Public Policy [Syllabus]
- Introduction to Comparative Politics [Syllabus]
- China: from revolution to reform [Syllabus]
- The Pacific Challenge [Syllabus]
- Problems of the Modern World (Honors class)
Latest teaching evaluations:
[2016] [2017a][2017b] [2017c] [2018a] [2018b] [2018c] [2018d]
[2018e] [2018f] [2019a] [2019b] [2019c][2019d][2019e] [2019f]
[2020a][2020b][2020c][2020d][2020e][2020f][2021a][2021b][2021c]
Selected Publications:
- Taiyi Sun, 2022, “Developmental States and Environment: Governed Market and Environmental Motivations in China and Japan,” in Environment, Sustainability, and Human Security, Zhiqun Zhu ed., World Scientific Reference.
- Taiyi Sun, 2022, “Controlling Civil Society from the Bottom-up: China’s Strategic Arrangement of the State-CSO-Individual Trialism in Managing State-Society Relations,” Journal of Contemporary China.
- Elizabeth Matto, Alison McCartney, Elizabeth A. Bennion, Taiyi Sun, Alasdair Blair, Dawn Whitehead, and Dick Simpson ed., 2021. Teaching Civic Engagement Globally, American Political Science Association Press.
- Taiyi Sun, 2021, “Importing Civic Engagement into Authoritarian China,” in Teaching Civic Engagement Globally, Elizabeth Matto, Alison McCartney, Elizabeth A. Bennion, Taiyi Sun, Alasdair Blair, Dawn Whitehead, and Dick Simpson ed. American Political Science Association Press.
- Taiyi Sun and Quansheng Zhao, 2021, “Delegated Censorship: The Dynamic, Decentralized, and Multi-Layered Information Control Regime in China,” Politics and Society.
- Taiyi Sun, 2020, “Forced Experimentation: Teaching Civic Engagement Online amid COVID-19,” PS: Political Science & Politics, 54(1): 176-178.
- Taiyi Sun, 2019, “Deliberate Differentiation for Outsourcing Responsibilities: The Logic of China’s Behavior toward Civil Society Organizations,” The China Quarterly, 240: 880-905.
- Taiyi Sun, 2019, “Civic Transformation in the Wake of the Wenchuan Earthquake: State, Society, and the Individual,” in Dog Days: A Year of Chinese Labour, Civil Society, and rights, Edited by Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere, ANU Press: 200-204.
- Taiyi Sun, 2019, “The Skeptical Society in Rural Sichuan.” Chinese Philanthropy: Past, Present And Future 中国慈善事业:过去,现在与未来. Caroline Reeves and Gao Xi, ed. Fudan University Press. [CENSORED]
- Taiyi Sun, 2019, Review of The Politics of Compassion: The Sichuan Earthquake and Civic Engagement in China, by Bin Xu, China Information, March, 33(1).
- Taiyi Sun, 2018, “Civic Transformation in the Wake of the Wenchuan Earthquake: State, Society, and the Individual,” Made in China, 3(1): 66-70.
- Taiyi Sun, 2018, “Earthquakes, state weakness, and the outcomes of the Arab Spring,” Asian and African Studies (亚非研究), accepted and was ready to be published in Mandarin Chinese [CENSORED]
- Taiyi Sun, 2018, Review of Shaken Authority: China’s Communist Party and the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, by Christian P. Sorace, Journal of Chinese Political Science, 23(2): 307-308.
- Taiyi Sun, 2017, “Earthquakes and the Typologies of State-CSO Relations in China: A Dynamic Framework,” China Information, November.
- Suzanne Lea and Taiyi Sun, 2014, “Diversity in the Facilitated Classroom” in Controversial History Education in Asian Contexts, Edited by Mark Baildon, Kah Seng Loh, Ivy Maria Lim, Gül İnanç, Junaidah Jaffar, Routledge [About the book]
- Taiyi Sun, 2010, “China’s Pegged Exchange Rate and Its Political Economy”, Journal of International Service, Spring [pdf]
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Talks, Conferences, and Workshop Presentations
- American Political Science Association (APSA) paper presentation, “Importing Civic Education into Authoritarian China” (upcoming) 2021.
- Beijing University virtual conference panel presentation, “Global Public Goods Provision and Chinese Foreign Policy,” 2021.
- Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) panel paper presentation, “The Developmental States and Environment: Governed Market and Environmental Motivations in China and Japan,” 2021.
- The Global Society of Cross-Taiwan Strait Studies, “Cross-Taiwan Strait Relations – Global Perspectives” (Panel in Mandarin Chinese) 2021.
- University Salon (formerly Harvard Salon) and US-China Perception Monitor, “American Presidential Elections and Implications” (Panel in Mandarin Chinese) 2020.
- Nanjing University virtual conference panel presentation, “Sino-U.S. relations in the Trump Era” (conference in Mandarin Chinese) 2020.
- Fudan University virtual conference panel presentation, “Sino-US relations under the COVID-19 pandemic and U.S. elections” (conference in Mandarin Chinese) 2020.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) Teaching and Learning conference paper presentation, “Creating social capital in classrooms: how different pedagogical methods could empower students and stimulate civic engagement,” 2020.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) paper presentation, ”legalization without institutionalization: how the Chinese state uses the law-making process to govern the nascent civil society,” 2019.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) paper presentation, “Interactive Censorship: The Editorial Experiences from Political Commentary Publications under Authoritarian China,” 2019.
- Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) panel paper presentation, “The Trump Administration’s Jacksonian Foreign Policy and Its Implications to the Cross-Strait Relations,” 2019.
- Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) panel paper presentation, “Earthquakes for Practices: How responses to natural disasters prepared authoritarian states and opposition groups for the Arab Spring,” 2019.
- China Foundation for International and Strategic Studies and the Global Forum of Chinese Political Scientists conference in Beijing, panel paper presentation “Trump’s China policy and the Evolution of Sino-US relations,” 2019.
- Zhengzhou Zhenyu Foundation, featured guest speaker, “Leadership and Public Narrative,” 2019.
- Tsinghua University Alumni Association, featured guest speaker, “Asian Americans and identity politics in the U.S.” 2018.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) paper presentation, “Smart resistance under authoritarian rule: how the ride-share networks facilitate local collective actions in China,” 2018.
- Guangzhou Huangpu ancient village, featured guest speaker, “Creating social capital in China – field experiments,” 2018.
- 2018 Cross-strait issues conference (Beijing), panelist and paper presenter, “The Jacksonian Foreign Policy and its implications to the cross-strait relations,” 2018.
- Beijing Normal University and Yifang Foundation, featured guest speaker, “The current state of the state-society relations in China,” 2018.
- Shanghai Youth 100 leadership workshop, organizer and featured speaker, “Leadership, heads, hearts, and hands,” 2018.
- Shanghai Youth 100 (prep camp) leadership workshop, organizer and featured speaker, “Public Narrative as a leadership practice,” 2018.
- American University, featured guest speaker, Washington Asia Forum (Asian Studies Research Council): “The Chinese State-Society Relations: Disasters, Social Capital, and Consequences,” 2018.
- Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) panel paper presentation, “Smart resistance under authoritarian rule: how the ride-share networks facilitate local collective actions in China,” 2018.
- American University, featured guest speaker to an undergraduate research methods seminar, “conducting mixed-method research,” 2017.
- NuLiSheHui (a Chinese Youth online forum), featured guest speaker, “Philanthropy and social innovation in China,” 2017.
- GaoLiPingTianXia (a Chinese Youth online forum), featured guest speaker, “The Comparative Politics of Introducing China,” 2017.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) panel paper presentation: “Disasters and the Creation of Social Capital,” 2017.
- Randolph-Macon College, featured speaker: “Political Institutionalization of the Chinese Leadership,” 2017.
- Hamilton Hall Lecture Series, featured speaker: “The Rise of China and its Implications for the U.S.” 2017.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) panel paper presentation: “The Origin of Social Capital: Great Transformation in Quake-stricken China", 2016.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) panel paper presentation: “Perceptions of civil society organizations in rural China: the skeptical society”, 2016.
- Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) panel paper presentation: “The Origin of Social Capital”, 2016.
- American Political Science Association (APSA) panel paper presentation: “Civil Society Organizations under Authoritarian Rule”, 2015.
- Zhejiang University, Featured guest speaker: “Earthquake and Social Capital Accumulation”, 2015.
- Fudan University, conference on Chinese Philanthropy: Past, Today and the Future. Presented paper: “Perceptions of Charitable Organizations in Rural Sichuan”, 2015.
- Harvard Graduate School of Education, Conference on: Civic and Moral Education in China. Presented paper: “The Civic Moral and Educational Challenges in Rural China”, 2015.
- Harvard Kennedy School, “Elite Politics and the Anti-Corruption Campaign” organizer and moderator, 2015.
- Boston University, Panel talk on Civil Society in China. Presentation given on: “Skeptical Society: Civil Society in China”, 2015.
- Beijing Normal University, Featured guest speaker: “The origin of social capital?”, 2014.
- Harvard Shanghai Center, Symposium on Cultivating Civic Consciousness in China. Paper presented: “Earthquake and Civil Society in China since the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake”, 2014.
- Harvard Kennedy School, panel speaker: “Chinese Politics: Perspectives on China Today”, 2014.
- Harvard University Ash Center, Featured guest speaker: “Disaster Response and Civil Society”, 2014.
- American University, Featured guest speaker: “Research Methods and doing fieldwork in China”, 2014.
- Harvard University Chinese Politics Research Workshop, Featured speaker: “Earthquake and Social Capital Accumulation”, 2014.
- MIT, Featured guest speaker: “Philanthropy and Public Welfare”, 2014.
- Harvard University, Featured speaker: “Disasters and the Myth of Civil Society Formation in China”, 2014.
- Mutually Assured Restraint Task Force member, George Washington University, Washington DC. [See here], 2014.
- American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, “What IF Students Asked the Questions?: Student-Facilitated Policy Discussion in the University Classroom”, 2014.
- American Public Health Association Annual Meeting, “Community empowerment in the marginalized population in urban areas”, 2013.
- Harvard University Ash Center, Featured guest speaker: “Developmental States and Environment”, 2013.
- American Sociology Association Annual Conference, “The IF method in the Facilitated Classrooms”, 2013.
- Harvard University China Education Forum, presentation: “Citizenship and Social Innovation”, 2013.
- Brown University Echo Symposium, Featured guest speaker: “Social Innovation: People, Money and the new approaches”, 2013.
- Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations, panelist, Panelist: “Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation”, 2013.
- TEDxHFLS talk, Featured guest speaker: “Mind the Gap: Turning ideas into Impact”, 2013.
- American Political Science Association Teaching and Learning Conference, “Diversity and Controversy in the Facilitated Classroom”, 2013.
- American University Washington Semester Program Guest Speaker, “Cross-Culture Communications”, 2013.
- Fudan University Advanced Forum on In-Depth Research on China, “Contemporary China Studies with the Social Sciences’ Perspective” July, Shanghai China, 2012.
- National University of Singapore, “History as Controversy: Writing and Teaching Contentious Topics in Asian Histories” November, Singapore, 2011.
- Harvard Yanching Institute and Nanjing University International Workshop on China Studies, “Social Stratification and Citizenship” July, Nanjing China, 2011.
- 5th Taiwan Conference: Global Forum of Chinese Political Scientists, “China-U.S. Relations and New Thinking of Cross-Strait Relations” October, Washington DC, 2010.
- Nanjing University International Workshop on China Studies, “The China Experience under the Global Context” July, Nanjing China, 2010.