I am a PhD candidate in the Political Science Department at MIT, specializing in comparative political economy and political methodology. My research focuses on authoritarian politics, state-business relations, and social policy.
My dissertation examines how authoritarian regimes extend political control into the private sector while preserving market growth. Focusing on China, I study how the regime embeds Communist Party cells within firms and how these cells affect business strategies and employee behavior. Methodologically, I combine quantitative methods with qualitative interviews and fieldwork, drawing on data from corporate disclosures, text analysis, employee surveys, and survey experiments. My dissertation has been supported by the APSA Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDRIG), the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation.
In a related line of research, I study how state institutions and bureaucratic incentives shape the regulation of firms and the protection of labor. In a paper with Hao Zhang (conditionally accepted at Political Science Research and Methods), we show China’s GDP-oriented cadre evaluation system, often credited with fostering high bureaucratic incentives and rapid growth, paradoxically discourages the enforcement of social policies.
I hold an MA in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences (QMSS) from Columbia University, an MSS in Government and Politics from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a Bachelor of Social Science Education from The Education University of Hong Kong.
Before starting my PhD, I worked in media and advocacy, including serving as a ChinaFile Research Fellow at Asia Society in New York and a research journalist at Initium Media in Hong Kong. I also coordinated a media project with Oxfam Hong Kong, where I traveled across China to interview migrant workers and NGOs, documenting their struggles to advocate for their rights.
More about my research can be found here, and my CV is here. You can reach out to me via email at ye_zhang[at]mit.edu.