Books
Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience (Columbia University Press, 2018). To get the book from Amazon, click here.
To get the book from Amazon, click here.
The Xi Jinping Effect (University of Washington Press, 2024) (co-edited with Ashley Esarey). To get the book from Amazon, click here.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Forthcoming. “Activism of No Action: The Lying-flat Movement in Chinese Cyberspace (with Yuan Wang). In Jian Xu, Shaohua Guo, and Weiyu Zhang (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Chinese Digital Media and Communication (Sage).
2025. “Propaganda State 2.0 in China.” The China Quarterly. First View, pp. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741025101574
2025. “Authoritarian Elasticity: How Autocracies May Effectively Mobilize for Crisis Management” (with Yuge Wang). Governance 38(4): e70074. https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.70074
2024. “The Xi Jinping Effect: An Overview” (with Ashley Esarey), in Ashley Esarey and Rongbin Han (eds.) The Xi Jinping Effect (University of Washington Press, 2024), 1-21.
2024. “From empowering Internet to digital dominance: The past, present, and future of cyber politics in China,” Communication and the Public 9(4): 382-391. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047324126490
2024. “Passing on the red genes: Communism nostalgia in online fictions and ideological governance in China.” Regulation & Governance. Early View. https://doi.org/10.1111/rego.12622
2024. “China on Campus: A Conversation with China Scholars of Asian Heritage” (with Dan Chen and John Yasuda), PS: Political Science & Politics 57 (1), 133-136.
2023. “Racial and Gender Stereotypes in Immigration Attitudes: Evidence from China” (with Li Shao, Juan Du and Dongshu Liu), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49 (9), 2391-2415. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2165485.
2023. “Opportunistic Bargaining: Negotiating Distribution in China” (with Juan Du and Li Shao). The China Quarterly 253, 141-157. https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0305741022001370
2023. “Cosmetic Responsiveness: Why and How Local Authorities Respond to Mundane Online Complaints in China” (with Yuan Wang). Journal of Chinese Political Science 28 (2), 187-207. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-022-09798-z
2023. “Debating China beyond the Great Firewall: Digital Disenchantment and Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Chinese Political Science 28 (1), 85-103. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-022-09812-4.
2023. “How does Marriage Demand Stimulate Support for Immigration in Asia?” (with Li Shao, Juan Du and Dongshu Liu), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49 (5), 1311-1330. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1971959. [A preprint version is available here, with the online appendix]
2022. “Scaling Authoritarian Information Control: How China Adjusts the Level of Online Censorship” (with Li Shao), Political Research Quarterly 75(4): 1345-1359. https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211064536 [A preprint version is available here]
2022. “Defusing Environmental Activism through Scientific Greening: Government Framing Strategy and Its Effects in China” (with Juan Du and Weixia Lv). Environmental Policy and Governance 32 (2), 135-148. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.1971.
2022. “Modernization Planner, Authoritarian Paternalist, and Rising Power: Evolving Government Positions in China’s Internet Securitization” (with Weishan Miao). Journal of Contemporary China 31(136), 574-591. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2021.1985832. [A preprint version is available here]
- The article has also been included in Suisheng Zhao (ed.) The Making of China’s Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Security Policy: Players, Governance, and Global Ambition (Routledge, 2025), 71-87.
2021. “Cyber Nationalism and Regime Support under Xi Jinping: The Effects of the 2018 Constitutional Revision,” Journal of Contemporary China 30:131(2021), 717-733. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2021.1884957. [A preprint version is available here]
2019. “Patriotism without state blessing: Chinese cyber nationalists in predicament,” in Teresa Wright (ed.) Handbook of Dissent and Protest in China (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019): 346-360. [A preprint version is available here]
2019. “Rescuing Authoritarian Rule: The Anti-Gongzhi Discourse in Chinese Cyberspace” (with Linan Jia), in Chris Shei (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis (Routledge, 2019): 415-427. [A preprint version is available here]
2018. “Withering Gongzhi: Cyber Criticism of Chinese Public Intellectuals,” International Journal of Communication 12(2018), 1966-1987.
2018. “Governing by the Internet: Local Governance in the Digital Age” (with Linan Jia), Journal of Chinese Governance 3:1 (2018), 67-85.
- The article has also been included in Jianxing Yu and Sujian Guo (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Local Governance in Contemporary China (Macmillan, 2019): 421-440.
2017. “Supervising Authoritarian Rule Online: Citizen Participation and State Responses in China,” The Journal of Comparative Law 12:2 (2017), 397-416.
2016. “Challenging, But Not Trouble-Making: Cultural Elites in China’s Heritage Preservation” (with Yao Yuan), Journal of Contemporary China 25:98(2016): 292-306.
2015. “Cyber Activism in China: Empowerment, Control, and Beyond,” in Axel Bruns, Eli Skogerbø, Christian Christensen, Anders Olof Larsson, and Gunn Sara Enli (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Social Media and Politics (Routledge, 2015): 268-280.
2015. “Defending the Authoritarian Regime Online: The ‘Voluntary Fifty-Cent Army’,” The China Quarterly 224 (2015):1006 – 1025.
2015. “College Education and Attitudes toward Democracy in China: An Empirical Study” (with Gang Wang and Liyun Wu), Asia Pacific Education Review 16:3(2015), 399-412.
2015. “Manufacturing Consent in Cyberspace: China’s ‘Fifty-Cent Army’,” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 44: 2(2015), 105-134.
2009. “Path to Democracy? Assessing Village Elections in China” (with Kevin J. O’Brien), Journal of Contemporary China 18:60 (2009), 359-378.
- The article receives the 2018 John and Vivian Sabel Award of the best article published in the Journal of Contemporary China.
- The article has been reprinted in Kevin O’Brien and Zhao Suisheng (eds.), Grassroots Elections in China (London: Routledge, 2011) and in Anthony Saich (ed.), Political Governance in China (Elgar, 2015). It has also translated and published in a Chinese journal: “民主之路?——中国村民选举评析”（与欧博文合著），国外理论动态，no. 7 (2011): 59-70.
Translation
Chinese Translation of W. Phillips Shively, The Craft of Political Research (6th Edition) (Prentice Hall Press, 2006) (with Jiguang Guo, Hengfu Ruan, Yuanyuan Wang, and Dan Li), (政治科学研究方法, W. Phillips Shively著, 新知译, 上海人民出版社, 2006).
Other Publications
Working Papers
“Political Corruption and Private Investment: The Case of China” (with Robert Grafstein and Weiqi Zhang). January 13, 2020. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3518489 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3518489
Book Reviews
Review of The Currency of Truth: Newsmaking and the Late-Socialist Imaginaries of China’s Digital Era by Emily Chua, The China Quarterly 257, 274-276. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305741024000067
Review of The Web of Meaning: The Internet in a Changing Chinese Society by Elaine J. Yuan, New Media & Society 25:3 (2023), 672-673. DOI: 10.1177/14614448231152547.
Review of Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China by Jun Liu, Journal of Chinese Political Science Online First, Feb. 17, 2021. DOI: 10.1007/s11366-021-09729-4
Review of Becoming Activist in Global China: Social Movements in the Chinese Diaspora by Andrew Junker, Mobilization 24:4 (2019), 527-528.
Review of China’s Digital Nationalism by Florian Schneider, The International Journal of Press/Politics 24:3 (2019), 391-393, https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161219842835
Review of Media Politics in China: Improvising Power under Authoritarianism by Maria Repnikova, Chinese Journal of Communication 12:2 (2019), 244-246, https://doi.org/10.1080/17544750.2019.1584473
Review of Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall by Margaret E. Roberts, Perspectives on Politics 16:4 (2018), 1134-1135, https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592718002608.
Review of the book China’s Contested Internet, edited by Guobin Yang, The China Quarterly, 225 (March 2016): 258-259.
Review of the book The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China, edited by Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang, The China Quarterly 228(December 2016): 1127-1128.
Online Publications
New (and Not So New) Trends in China’s Online Censorship under Xi Jinping. China Policy Institute: Analysis (November 7, 2017).
The ‘Voluntary Fifty-Cent Army’ in Chinese Cyberspace. China Policy Institute: Analysis (February 29, 2016).
China’s Media in Cross Currents: Implications for Critical Journalism. China Policy Institute: Analysis (June 29, 2015).
Rongbin Han 