Hans H. Tung

Hans H. Tung is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science and a faculty associate of the Behavioral and Data Science Research Center and the Center for Research in Econometric Theory and Applications at National Taiwan University. He is a non-resident research fellow at the V-Dem Regional Center for East Asia hosted by Keio University, and serves on the advisory board of the Cambridge University Press book series on Taiwan Studies. Currently, he is also an Executive Committee member of the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences under Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. He has taught international political economy, political economy of authoritarianism, and Chinese politics at National Chengchi University, University of Vienna, and National Taiwan University. He is primarily interested in both formal and empirical analyses of the politics of economic policy-making in both authoritarian and democratic settings, and has authored and co-authored several articles in both academic journals and edited volumes. More specifically, one strand of his research seeks to uncover the political logic of institutional development under authoritarian regimes. His book, Economic Growth and Endogenous Authoritarian Institutions in Post-Reform China (2019), develops a dynamic theory of authoritarian institutional change in the context of post-reform China. A second strand of his research explores more fundamentally individuals’ political-economic decision-making by utilizing advanced neuroscientific methods and data. One ongoing project investigates both behaviorally and neuroscientifically how individuals’ perceptions about the structure of inequality affect their levels of contributions in a public-goods game context. A third strand builds on the theoretical insights developed from other parts of his research to address various issues regarding how China’s rise on the world stage affects the regional dynamics in East Asia.