ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7004-3669
Scopus Author ID: 7404621442
ResearcherID: JCO-2339-2023
Google Scholar Profile: d_B3PMoAAAAJ

Metrics for Academic and Research Impact

A chair professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs, he conducts research on comparative politics and political economy, with a regional focus on East and Southeast Asia. He is among the world’s top 2% most-cited scientists in the subfield of “Political Science & Public Administration” according to the 2024 Stanford/Elsevier annual report. His research - cited over 4,800 times with an H-index of 35 according to Google Scholar - has been featured in the popular media (e.g., Time Magazine, The Washington Post, Le Monde, CNBC, RTHK and Wired Magazine, etc.). He is the author or editor of 12 books and has published over 150 articles and chapters - many in leading journals. His books include Towards Inclusive Social Policies: Southeast Asia after the Pandemic (Bristol University Press, 2025 with D. Fossati and N. Thomas), The Philippines: From “People Power” to Democratic Backsliding (Cambridge, 2023), Presidentialism and Democracy in Southeast and East Asia (co-editor, Routledge, 2022), China’s “Singapore Model” and Authoritarian Learning (co-editor, Routledge, 2020), Authoritarian Modernism in East Asia (Palgrave, 2019), Routledge Handbook on the Contemporary Philippines (co-editor, Routledge, 2018), Dynasties and Female Political Leaders in Asia (co-editor, LIT Verlag, 2013), Democratic Revolutions: Asia and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 2004) and The Anti-Marcos Struggle (Yale, 1995). He is the senior co-editor of the Routledge/City University of Hong Kong Southeast Asia Series. His research has been funded through external grants worth over one million USD, with six awarded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund (GRF). He lends his expertise to government, private, and non-profit organizations. After teaching at the Dresden University of Technology, Glasgow University and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, he came to the City University of Hong Kong in 2010 where he was director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre 2011-2024 and head of the Department of Asian and International Studies 2015-2022. A past president of the Hong Kong Political Science Association and the Asian Political and International Studies Association, he was Lee Kong Chian Distinguished Fellow for Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore (2008) and Stanford University (2009) as well as a visiting fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University in winter/spring 2024. He received his BA from Brown University, a MA from Cambridge University, and his PhD in political science from Yale University where he was mentored by Juan J. Linz and James C. Scott.

• Comparative politics and political economy
• Authoritarian nostalgia in East and Southeast Asia
• Dynastic women leaders in Asia
• Pushback against backsliding in Southeast Asia
• The dilemmas of developmentalism in East and Southeast Asia

• State and Society in East Asia
• US Politics and Society
• Political Economy and Comparative Politics