My research includes two book projects. Together, they examine two problems in political development: how rulers build durable political order, and how political elites construct national communities in response to international pressure. China is the empirical setting.
Governing Empire: Bureaucracy and State Power in Imperial China
Under contract with Cambridge University Press. Final manuscript scheduled for submission by August 31, 2026.
How does a new state transform military victory into durable rule? The book develops an organizational theory of state-building. I argue that rulers construct adaptive bureaucracies by diversifying recruitment channels and matching elites with different governing capacities to heterogeneous political tasks.
From Empire to Nation-State: Aspirational Nationalism in China
Book project. Book conference scheduled for September 25, 2026.
How do latecomers to international politics build nations in a world already dominated by stronger nation-states? We argue that nation-building is a strategy of state strengthening and that selective emulation provides a central means of pursuing it. Political elites study successful foreign powers, selectively borrow their institutions, and use external models to imagine a stronger national future.