Shitong Qiao

"While the Chinese state endeavors to institute the Party’s leadership in all aspects of the society, it has failed in its urban neighborhoods where hundreds of millions of middle-class homeowners, who are backbone of the regime, live." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/...

"In the case that the primary purpose was to support the local car manufacturing industry, the compensation took the form of subsidizing taxi drivers to replace their old cars with electronic vehicles (“EVs”) manufactured locally." papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Democratic Party’s winners this week “arguably got more out of affordability than any other approach,” @dkthomp.bsky.social argues. A party that adopts that approach at the national level “is in a strong position going into 2026”: https://theatln.tc/DJXBANTH

YouTube video by The B1M How to Finish the World's Tallest Abandoned Building

Hard to believe this video interview—where I discuss real estate law and politics in China—has been viewed over 583,000 times in just two months. Two parents of my daughter’s school friends even sent me screenshots of it…
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko25...

China’s Tech Obsession Is Weighing Down Its Economy A decade of cutting-edge investment hasn’t translated into growth.

"Techno-wizardry on one side and struggling villages on the other conveys valuable yet only partially accurate pictures of a complex country."

#PIPFellow @kennedychina.bsky.social and Scott Rozelle discuss China's tech rise for @foreignpolicy.com:

https://bit.ly/47kgElN

The Democracy of HOAs (Seriously) w/ Shitong Qiao One of the most odious sources of small scale authoritarianism in America is a site of actually existing democracy in China

No one in America likes their HOA. However, according to @shitongqiao.bsky.social, HOAs are an important site of actually existing democracy in China that depend on a strong state while potentially threatening it. Alice Liu asks him how this could be.

open.substack.com/pub/uscnpm/p...

Interesting. A similar trend has been happening to their Chinese offices too... Seems that something more fundamental about the U.S. legal market is going on.

Recognition Rules: The Case for a New International Law of Government Recognition - NYU Law Review The last several years have been marked by contentious disputes about which governments represent the states of Venezuela, Libya, Yemen, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Niger. Such disputes are far from idl...

It's out!

"Recognition Rules: The Case for a New International Law of Government Recognition"

Published in @nyulawreview.bsky.social, with coauthors Justin Cole and Alaa Hachem.

You can download it for free here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

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

Twenty Leading China Specialists Selected for Ninth Round of Public Intellectuals Program The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations is pleased to announce the ninth round of fellows in its  Public Intellectuals Program (PIP), generously funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The ...

@ncuscr.bsky.social is delighted to announce the twenty fellows who make up the ninth cohort of our Public Intellectuals Program.

Learn more about the newest #PIPFellows:
www.ncuscr.org/twenty-leadi...

The Waste Management Billionaire Setting Real-Estate Records for Fun Patrick Dovigi has made a hobby out of purchasing some of the country’s priciest properties, and then selling them for even higher prices. ‘I’m trash by day and luxury properties by night.’

Even in the rarefied world of luxury real estate, professional hockey player-turned-waste management billionaire Patrick Dovigi stands out for his ability to write big checks and trade multimillion-dollar homes like chess pieces.

“Our politics revolve around the idea that scarce resources mean keeping people out. We are utterly unprepared for a world in which perhaps the scarcest resource will be people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/01/31/o...

The Machine Stops The neurologist Oliver Sacks on steam engines, smartphones, and fearing the future.

In a letter drawn from a posthumous collection of correspondence, published in 2019, the neurologist Oliver Sacks argued that society had no immunity to the seductions of digital life. “What we are seeing—and bringing on ourselves—resembles a neurological catastrophe on a gigantic scale,” he wrote.

Being the top-ranked golfer in the world comes with a lot of expectations, but Scottie Scheffler revealed Tuesday there was one place where that weight became unbearable: his Venmo account.

More ⤵️

www.nytimes.com/athletic/641...

Grateful to Jed (Purdy!) and The LPE Blog for this book interview, including a critique and response regarding the relationship between property and democracy. lpeproject.org/blog/the-aut...

Hi Ben, Thanks for this post and for your thoughtful questions during the book panel—I really appreciated them. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to say hello afterward; I had to head out quickly to catch a flight. But it's great to finally put a face to the name. I hope our paths cross again soon!

Happy to chair the selection committee. Please spread the news!

YouTube video by U.S. - Asia Law Institute NYU The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China (book talk)

Homeowners' associations sound pretty cool, at least in China! Very grateful for this deeply engaging conversation with Prof. Rick Hills about my new book: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpun....

Junior faculty in law and STEM fields --

Call for Papers
Eighth Junior Faculty Forum on Law and STEM
Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, September 26-27, 2025

Electronic submissions should be made here: web.cvent.com/event/80992b.... The deadline for submissions is June 3, 2025.

Nervous and excited about my book talks at Duke, the American Bar Foundation, Chicago, Columbia, McGill, NYU, Penn, Stanford, and Yale. If you’re not in any of these places, you can join online via the Harvard-MIT Urban China Series. Hope to see some of you there!

The Authoritarian Commons Cambridge Core - Socio-Legal Studies - The Authoritarian Commons

The Authoritarian Commons by Shitong Qiao

"Documents and insightfully analyzes how the development of homeowners’ associations (HoAs) in China generated an ongoing democratic revolution in hundreds of thousands of neighborhoods."

Out Now #LawSky

Chicago landlord ordered to pay $80,000 for threatening to call ICE on tenants, a first under 2019 state law An Illinois circuit court judge ordered a Chicago landlord last month to pay $80,000 to former tenants after threatening to call ICE on them during a verbal dispute in June of 2020, according to co…

Chicago landlord ordered to pay $80,000 for threatening to call ICE on tenants

YIMBYism is not just Truth and Justice but also the American Way, as @profschleich.bsky.social and I argue here.

Thank you. I like it too, but the anonymous reviewers disagreed.

Another title for the paper we considered was "The Origin of Communities in Authoritarian Cities"...

Book cover of For a Liberatory Politics of Home by Michele Lancione. Apartment exterior at night with lights on and the shadow of a person standing inside.

New #BookReview forum discussing "For a Liberatory Politics of Home" featuring an author response from Michele Lancione

https://buff.ly/4kdbeyH

@colinmcfarlane.bsky.social @kbrickell.bsky.social @erinmcel.bsky.social @saanchi.bsky.social @dukepress.bsky.social

Thrilled to see my book The Authoritarian Commons featured alongside the amazing works of my Duke colleagues. It’s inspiring to be part of such a vibrant and productive academic community!

"With its prevalent focus on formal institutions and norms in constitutional orders, the comparative turn may unwittingly limit studies of the constitutional phenomenon."

"The 1925 Act substituted discretionary writs of certiorari for a large proportion of these mandatory appeals, thus allowing the Court to determine the nature of its own docket."