Xiao Ma

@zu_gary @UTKnoxville Congrats!

Some personal news: I am thrilled to share that I will be joining the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (@UTKnoxville ) as an Assistant Professor of Political Science this August! 🍊 🧡 🏔️ I look forward to continuing my research on Chinese politics, authoritarian rule, and information management at UTK. Huge thanks to my mentors and the wonderful community at @UCSD @GPS_UCSD for their support.

For article link: doi.org/10.1017/S03057…

Do local courts matter in China’s anti-corruption campaign? In our new @chinaquarterly article, we show that where cases are assigned—especially how far the designated court is from an official’s jurisdiction—correlates with case severity and signals Beijing’s resolve.

Introducing **China Modern Gazetteer Full-Text Database** — a data project w/ @YangYang_Leo & Ting Chen @colomct. Gazetteers cover major county-level events & stats in early PRC, Republican Era, and late Qing. Visit: cngazetteer.com youtube.com/watch?v=Coh6tw…

@hanzhangliu Congrats, Hanzhang!

I'm excited to be joining the excellent faculty at FSU! Looking forward to this new chapter of my academic journey.

@Handi_Rita_Li @World_Pol Congrats, Handi!

After five years from the first draft, my job market paper is finally forthcoming @World_Pol. I greatly appreciate all who helped and commented. I hope it offers something to those interested in transparency, institution development, authoritarianism, or contentious politics.

Recently learned that our @AJPS_Editor article on state-building and elite compensation in medieval China received Honorable Mention for the Charles Tilly Best Article Award in Comparative and Historical Sociology by @ASAnews. So grateful for this recognition by sociologists!

Grateful to @YuanhangZhu2 for the interview.

The winter 2025 newsletter of the Sociology of Development Section @SocDevelopment of the American Sociological Association @ASAnews published an interview of me on my book Localized Bargaining! For the full newsletter, see: sociologyofdevelopment.com/wp-content/upl…

@jeanjiyeonhong I have faith in Professor Przeworski’s classical finding that democracies with >8,000 US$ per capital GDP will not revert back to authoritarianism.

South Korean president just declared emergency martial law and prohibited all political activities as the first order. Last emergency martial law was before my birth under Park Chung-hee regime in 1979. I am speechless and my head is all murky. cnn.com/2024/12/03/asi…

Now available? My book, "Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics," analyzes the role of technocrats in crafting China's economic policy paradigms. Coupon code below.

Thrilled to announce “From Click to Boom: The Political Economy of E-Commerce in China” is released! (amazon: tiny.cc/35zuzz or 30%off with code P327 at tiny.cc/2ouuzz via @PrincetonUPress) A decade in the making, my book presents how the world’s largest e-commerce market unveils a digital path to development—and what it means for China’s growth trajectory and institutional evolution worldwide. Research built on extensive fieldwork across 6 provinces, hundreds of interviews, two original surveys, 27 million data of proprietary transactions, and a rare, large-scale field experiment spanning 3 Chinese provinces… A thread about the book below: (1/n)

Call for Papers for the 2025 Chinese Politics Mini-Conference is now open. Please submit your abstract using this Google Form by December 17: forms.gle/V4wKRXkyYvms4T… Please forward this call to anyone that might be interested.

@jeffreyweng Congrats!

Pleased, at long last, to see my article on Chinese character simplification in print! (Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 83/2) muse.jhu.edu/pub/109/articl… 1/6

@gerardrolanducb Happy Birthday, Gerard!

I still have quite a few research projects that I want to bring to fruition (now mostly book projects), and I hope, to do all this in parallel, while being there for my family during the coming years. Thanks for reading!

Today I turn 70. It is a special day for me. I have reached the age of 70. I feel very grateful for this, since most people who have ever lived on earth did not reach that age. But there is another reason this is a special day for me.1/

The 17th Graduate Seminar on China is calling for proposals. Interested ABDs and fresh PhDs can apply at cloud.itsc.cuhk.edu.hk/webform/view.p… by October 8, 2024.

@vshih2 @JialeiMa_ @WorldDevJournal Thanks Victor!

@maxiaoalex @JialeiMa_ @WorldDevJournal Wow nice paper and good potential for Chinese politics syllabi !

Happy to share "Domestic policy consequences of international mega-events: Evidence from China", (coauthored with my doctoral student @JialeiMa_) out @WorldDevJournal. Perfect timing as the Paris Olympics just concluded. authors.elsevier.com/a/1jajm,6yxDST…

The findings show China’s integration with the world has not only reshaped the landscape of the international order, but also has significant policy implications at home.

Cities that became host places for mega-events are more likely to succeed in securing central government approvals in subway infrastructure, and the scale often exceeds direct, event-related needs.

We use subway investment, which is tightly regulated by the central bureaucracy, to test our argument. Two different sets of central bureaucracies and different bureaucratic processes apply to the selection of Chinese cities for mega-events and the approval of subway projects.

National leaders care deeply about the success of the mega-events, and such attention becomes bargaining leverage for host cities seeking to gain policy benefits from central bureaucracies.