A data-driven dive into Chinese politics, with Stanford's Yiqing Xu
Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week on Sinica, Kaiser chats with Yiqing Xu, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, about his work in applying modern methods in political science to the politics of contemporary China. In a wide-ranging conversation, they discuss qualitative vs. quantitative approaches and how the debate parallels the debate between the area studies approach to China and the discipline-centered approach, as well as the pitfalls of the current data obsession in the social sciences. They also look at some of Yiqing’s recent scholarship on China’s ideological landscape, and preview a longitudinal comparative study looking at Chinese students at elite universities in China and their compatriots studying in the United States.
7:44: The role of social scientists and the quantitative vs. qualitative methods debate in the political science field
19:18: Mapping ideology in China with the “Chinese Political Compass” data set
31:21: Why policy preferences in authoritarian states matter
40:33: How discrimination in the United States impacts Chinese students’ attitudes toward the political system in China
A transcript of this episode is available on SupChina.com.
Recommendations:
Yiqing: The iconic Japanese rock band X Japan.
Kaiser: The album Discipline (1981) by the progressive rock band King Crimson.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Cynical podcast, a weekly discussion of current affairs in China, produced in partnership with SUPChina. |
| 0:14.8 | Subscribe to SubChina's daily access newsletter to keep on top of all the latest news from China from hundreds of different news sources or check out all the original writing on our site at suprinia.com, including reported |
| 0:26.6 | stories, editorials, and regular columns as well as a growing library of videos and, of course, |
| 0:32.5 | podcasts. We cover everything from China's fraught foreign relations to its ingenious entrepreneurs, from the ongoing repression of Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in China's Xinjiang region, |
| 0:42.3 | to China's ambitious efforts to eliminate poverty. |
| 0:45.3 | It's a feast of business, political, and cultural news about a nation that is reshaping the world. |
| 0:52.3 | We cover China with neither fear nor favor. I'm Kaiser Guo coming to you |
| 0:56.6 | today from my brother's place in the Telegraph Temascah neighborhood of Oakland, California. Just a |
| 1:01.5 | stone's throw, really, from my old alma mater. I am spending this week in Northern California, |
| 1:06.0 | mostly to see my mom and other family members here, but could not resist the opportunity to tape a show |
| 1:11.1 | with a scholar I have long wanted to feature on Cineca. |
| 1:14.3 | This show marks the first one that I have recorded in somewhere other than my house since |
| 1:19.7 | February of 2020. |
| 1:21.5 | Let's hope that before some new variant, the Delta or something even worse, manages to break |
| 1:25.5 | through, that I can at least get some good |
| 1:27.8 | podcast recordings. And so today, I am delighted to be joined by I Ching Xu, who is assistant |
| 1:33.1 | professor of political science at Stanford. He is doing what I certainly consider to be some of the |
| 1:38.1 | most interesting and important work on contemporary China in the social sciences. And he's also |
| 1:43.2 | been working to help other scholars from China who are interested in the social sciences, and he's also been working to help other scholars |
| 1:45.0 | from China who are interested in modern social science methodology to really up their game |
| 1:49.5 | and make great, really great contributions to the field. Long-time listeners to the show may recall |
| 1:54.9 | that we spoke about some of I Ching's work, specifically a paper on China's ideological landscape |
... |
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