Hans H. Tung

My special thanks to Danny Quah for the kind recommendation to Dr Mohan. This experience also reminds me of the importance of balancing my academic work with a stronger policy engagement. (Pretty impressive—they handed me a framed photo of myself speaking right after the panel!)

It’s a real honor to speak at such a high-profile forum alongside an exceptional lineup of speakers. I’ve already learned so much from the first day and am eager for the discussions in the coming two days.

Thank you, Haakon! This should allow me to visit Oslo again soon. I am still working on that Taipei conference I told you about and will keep you posted!

I’m thrilled to be part of this fantastic team and to push my work on authoritarian politics into new territory—especially tackling the urgent problems of AI-powered authoritarianism!

Echoing Ilaria—what a way to kick off the weekend! Our project just won a three-year grant from Norges forskningsråd the Research Council of Norway 🎉 (I was told only ~8–10% of proposals got funded. What a tough competition!).

It's really a great pleasure to co-organize the ESOC RPC 2025 with Renard this time around in Taipei. Many thanks to ESOC's board members and all the paper presenters/discussants. Looking forward to attending the annual meeting this October in DC!

YouTube video by The University of Chicago The Political Impact of Ideas: Evidence From England | James A. Robinson | 2025 Ryerson Lecture

youtu.be/D9vd1xMX4l4?...

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

While I am not a financial economist, I still find it pretty rewarding to have a chance to listen to Myron's talk today and get to know how he thinks about AI and its implications for understanding uncertainties in finance and beyond.

doi.org/10.1177/0951...

In addition to deriving conditions under which the commitment problem may or may not be present, we also provide some empirical strategies for applied researchers on public opinion to deal with potential biases due to self-censorship.

Through a formal model, we problematize in this paper the dictator's commitment to media freedom as an information collecting strategy and self-censorship among media outlets under dictatorships.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Another recent publication of ours, "Tell me the truth? Dictatorship and the commitment to media freedom" in the Journal of Theoretical Politics (journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...) sheds some light on this question.

Of course, theoretically speaking, media freedom as a commitment device under dictatorships should not be treated merely as a given.

I believe there will be more to come along this line of thought to enrich our understanding its empirical effects.

This great new paper on media freedom and the ethnic coalitions in African autocracies certainly attests to this observation and successfully brings this theoretical point to another empirical landscape.

When we wrote the paper, it struck me as a lacuna in the comparative authoritarianism literature that the effect of media freedom as a commitment device in dictatorships was under-appreciated.

Power Sharing and Media Freedom in Dictatorships This article investigates the relationship between elite power sharing and media freedom in dictatorships. While conventional wisdom posits that dictators have a strong incentive to control the med...

It's very encouraging to see one of the most essential theoretical points from our previous award-winning publication, "Power Sharing and Media Freedom in Dictatorships" in Political Communication, (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....) was picked up by this recent JOP paper.

Ethnic Coalitions and Media Freedom in African Autocracies | The Journal of Politics www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1...

Thx, Carl! Truly enjoyed the visit and greatly appreciate the opportunities to share with you guys my recent works and talk about collaborations. See you in a couple of months and will follow up soon on the ideas we discussed.

To me, this is a bit deja vu. Lots of experts made a very similar comment when Xi lifted the two-term limit on the state chairmanship back in 2018. There were also several blunders in economy policy then. This might be a pattern of all anti-establishment and personalistic leaders.

At a moment when our world is being turned topsy-turvy, we all need some time to break away from our daily routines and clear up our minds a bit, don’t we? Absolutely looking forward to another visit in the near future!

During the stay, I was able to present my recent works in the department workshops, engage in inspiring conversations with colleagues across different research institutions in Oslo, brew collaborative projects and, last but not least, enjoy the serenity of such a wonderful Nordic city.

I was so fortunate to have such a great opportunity to visit the department of political science at the University of Oslo @statsvitenskap.bsky.social for three weeks this January. Many thanks to Carl @chknutsen.bsky.social for the invitation and the University of Oslo for sponsoring it.

Due in one week!

esoc.princeton.edu/events/2025/...

Re-upping the CFP for the ESOC next year: proposals due in about three weeks!

📢 #HPE

#politicalscientists who study #democracy, #Constitution and #justice, please read and sign in support: t.co/5Vd1VXcsp8