Postdoctoral fellows and graduate fellows

Ashley Esarey, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
aesarey@middlebury.edu

Ashley Esarey received his PhD in Political Science at Columbia University in 2006. His research considers how media freedom affects democratization and how censorship promotes support for non-democratic regimes. At Harvard, he will work on a book project, Unwilling Mouthpiece: Propaganda and Pluralism in Chinese Media. Since the l980s, commercialization of China’s media has increased propaganda while reducing the space to challenge the state and consider opposing perspectives. More propaganda has not meant more effective propaganda. Although state control over political information remains strong, it has encountered resistance from media reluctant to comply with restrictions now that the state doesn’t provide subsidies, as well as from citizens who use the internet to express dissent.

Todd Hall, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Postdoctoral Fellowship
thall@uchicago.edu

Todd Hall received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Chicago in 2008. While at Harvard his topic will be Emotional States? Emotional Idioms in International Relations. The research seeks to provide a theoretical foundation for addressing the role of emotional behavior at the interstate level. For this purpose, he will develop a theory of emotional idioms, which are defined as implicitly shared understandings of emotional rhetoric, expressive behavior, and action tendencies. In contrast to scholars who advocate focusing on individual-level emotions, he instead proposes investigating the possibility that policymakers, regardless of what their own emotions may be, strategically draw upon emotional idioms when formulating foreign policy. In particular, he suggests that the use of emotional idioms in international relations provides a means to express intentions and convey meaningful signals. To probe the utility of this theoretical framework relative to neo-utilitarian approaches, three empirical domains will be examined: German-Israeli relations, Sino-American relations, and the responses of various state governments to the September 11 attacks.

Elisabeth Kaske, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
Kaske@em.uni-frankfurt.de

Elisabeth Kaske received her PhD at the University of Heidelberg in 2006. At Harvard, her research will be The Qing Government and Venality in the Post-Taiping Era. The study focuses on the development and the implications of the legal sale of offices and titles in Late Qing China at a time when this practice had already reached its limits as a means of public finance but was not yet abolished. The proposed study will explore venality from the state’s perspective and focus on two aspects: First, why did the sale of offices continue when more potent means of public finance had already been found? Second, how did the expansion of venality after the Xianfeng era affect the functioning of the administration?

Andrew Kennedy, Princeton-Harvard China and the World Postdoctoral Fellowship
abk1001@gmail.com

Andrew Kennedy received his PhD in 2007 from the Department of Government at Harvard. He is currently completing a book manuscript focusing on Mao Zedong and Jawaharlal Nehru which explores why leaders sometimes make surprisingly bold choices in foreign policy. Entitled The Origins of Audacity: National Efficacy Beliefs and the Cold War Crusades of Mao and Nehru, the project explores how both Mao and Nehru developed strong beliefs about the “national efficacy” of their states in their respective struggles for power, beliefs which then shaped their very different approaches to foreign policy after they came to power. In addition, he will also begin a new project exploring how China and India are pursuing energy and environmental security in the post-Cold War era.

Lynette Ong, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
onglynette@gmail.com

Lynette Ong received her PhD in Political Science at Australian National University in 2007. She works on the political economy of rural finance in China. Her research speaks to the literatures on rural development in China and the political economy of finance in transition countries. Dr. Ong will be completing a book manuscript in this area during her fellowship.

Elya J. Zhang 張珺, An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow
elya.zhang@gmail.com

Elya Zhang grew up in Fujian and graduated from Renmin University in Beijing before moving to the University of California at San Diego and taking her PhD in History in 2008. While set to take an assistant professorship at Fordham University in the fall of 2009, at Harvard she will study Spider Manchu: Duanfang, Networks, and the Human Landscape of Late Qing Reform. The project adopts a network approach to explore China’s transition from empire to nation. It covers the period from 1900 to 1915 and focuses on how provincial officials, with Manchu statesman Duanfang as the central figure, used favors, symbols, personal bonds, and resource exchanges to command the political economy of the reform era.

Yang Dian, Shum Fellow
dianyang@fas.harvard.edu

Yang Dian is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at Harvard. The title of his project is Modernizing Chinese Firms? China’s Adoption of American-Style Corporate Governance. The research will investigate the causes, processes, and consequences of the shareholder-oriented corporate governance (CG) reform of the Chinese publicly-held companies since the late 1990s. Specifically, the project will address the following questions: Why and how did Chinese public companies adopt shareholder-oriented CG practices, such as the independent/outside director system? What are the effects of the adopted CG practices on firm outcomes, especially on three important issues for firms—CEO turnover, corporate strategy, and firm performance? Are the American shareholder-oriented CG practices effective in disciplining CEOs and corporate management, making the Chinese firms more “modern”, more competitive, and better in performance? In a broader perspective, this project aims at examining the role of the state, financial markets, and globalization in shaping the corporate governance and corporate strategy of large Chinese corporations. The research will take both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Zhang Min, Shum Fellow
minzhang@fas.harvard.edu

Zhang Min is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard. The title of her project is The Politics of Schooling in a Changing Moral World—An Investigation on Education and Identity in Rural Shaanxi. Her dissertation research will investigate the educational strategies of rural families in the changing moral world of post-reform China. The study will attempt to go beyond the changing nature of schooling from the perspective of individual actors, both inside and outside of schools. This approach will also contribute to studies of social action—the interplay of agency and structure –in political anthropology and critical theories of education.