Research
I study the interaction between community groups and states. Ordinary citizens are increasingly taking individual and collective initiative to address development challenges. Citizens of authoritarian regimes--and many democracies--struggle to have a voice in development and policy. How do citizen initiatives impact state policy and practice? What social and political dynamics foster citizen engagement?
I study how groups interact with policy in a number of contexts: grassroots NGO and INGO advocacy in China, cross-sector knowledge communities and local policy, and INGOs promoting global environmental governance in China's outbound aid and investment. Another branch of my research studies NGO interventions to empower citizens in the global South, such as fighting misinformation and promoting social cohesion in India. I use qualitative methods, such as political ethnography, participant observation and action-research, supplemented with quantitative and experimental methods. My work has been published in International Affairs, World Development, Studies in Comparative International Development, Voluntas, and the Journal of Chinese Political Science.
Global civic space is shrinking. Citizen groups and NGOs are not passive victims of shrinking civic space, nor do they simply adapt under tightening control. Groups can actively identify still-open spaces for influence and constructive action, enter into them, and work to expand them. Observing such spaces and creative agency to expand them is vital in a time of contraction.