I am an incoming An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University’s Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from MIT, where I specialized in comparative political economy and political methodology. My research examines how the state, firms, and workers interact under authoritarian rule, with a regional focus on China.
My dissertation examines how autocracies manage the tension between market expansion and political control. Focusing on the everyday setting of private workplaces, I study how the Chinese party-state embeds Communist Party cells within private firms and how these institutions affect business operations and employee behavior. Methodologically, I combine quantitative methods with qualitative interviews and fieldwork, drawing on firm-level panel data, 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 (published 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.