Dr Chao-yo Cheng — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Dr Chao-yo Cheng is a Lecturer in Quantitative Political and Social Research. He is also the Director of Birkbeck's Postgraduate Social Research Programmes. His work applies various computational, quantitative and qualitative methods to address a wide range of topics in the political economy of development and institutions. Before coming to Birkbeck, Chao-yo held fellowship positions at Tsinghua University (Beijing) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Office hours

Friday 3-5pm during the academic year (please email or use this link to make an appointment).

Qualifications

PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
MA, Columbia University
BA, National Chengchi University

Web profiles

Visiting posts

Visiting Assistant Professor, University of International Business and Economics, 07-2023

Professional activities

Committee on the Status of First Generation Scholars in the Profession, American Political Science Association

Editorial Advisory Panel, Public Administration and Development (PAD)

Young Editorial Board, Asian Review of Political Economy (ARPE)

Early-Career Review Board, Social Science Research (SSR)

Honours and awards

Asia Fellow, American Political Science Association, November 2021

ORCID

0000-0002-4488-2450

Research

Research interests

Race, ethnicity, and politics
Comparative authoritarianism
Political economy of development and institutions
Public policy and politics of Asia (China, India, and Southeast Asia)
Computational social science
Formal theory and quantitative methodology

Research Centres and Institutes

Co-Director, Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies
Member, Birkbeck Research Centre in Environment and Sustainability

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

I am happy to work with students using innovative computational, quantitative, and qualitative methods to study various topics in the political economy of development and institutions, such as

democracy and authoritarianism,
institutions and organizational behavior,
local governance, intergovernmental relations and state building,
race, ethnicity and politics,
poverty and inequality, and
the politics of government responsiveness.

Students can examine single-country and/or comparative cases in the Global South, using contemporary and/or historical perspectives. I will assist in placing their research within a comprehensive theoretical framework.

Teaching

Teaching modules

Masterclass in Social Research (SSPO019S7)
Doing Political and Social Research (SSPO220S6)
Advanced Topics in Quantitative Social Research (SSPO241H7)
Investigating the Social World (SSPO263S7)
Chinese Politics in Comparative Perspective (SSPO273S6)

Publications

Article

Cheng, Chao-Yo and Noh, Y. (2024) Electoral institutions and repression in dictatorships. Electoral Studies 89 (102791), ISSN 0261-3794.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Lin, Y.-T. (2023) Ethnic ties, organized opposition and voter defection in authoritarian elections. Government and Opposition 58 (3), pp. 497-515. ISSN 0017-257X.
Ma, C. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Haibo, H. (2022) From local to upper capture: the Chinese experiment of administrative courts. China Review 22 (3), pp. 9-46. ISSN 1680-2012.
Cheng, Chao-Yo (2021) Poverty alleviation and state building in peripheral areas: evidence from China. Japanese Journal of Political Science 22 (4), pp. 312-332. ISSN 1468-1099.
Dai, Y. and Li, Y. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Zhao, H. and Meng, T. (2021) Government-led or public-led? Chinese policy agenda setting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice 23 (2), pp. 157-175. ISSN 1387-6988.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Lee, Y.J. and Murray, G. and Noh, Y. and Urpelainen, J. and Van Horn, J. (2020) Vested interests: examining the political obstacles to power sector reform in twenty Indian states. Energy Research & Social Science 70, pp. 101766. ISSN 2214-6296.
Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2020) Inequality in policy implementation: caste and electrification in rural India. Journal of Public Policy 41 (2), pp. 331-359. ISSN 0143-814X.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2019) Criminal politicians and socioeconomic development: evidence from rural India. Studies in Comparative International Development 54 (4), pp. 501-527. ISSN 0039-3606.
Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2018) Social acceptance of new energy technology in developing countries: A framing experiment in rural India. Energy Policy 113, pp. 466-477. ISSN 0301-4215.
Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2018) Geography, community, household: adoption of distributed solar power across India. Energy for Sustainable Development 42, pp. 54-63. ISSN 0973-0826.
Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. and Ganesan, K. and Jain, A. (2016) Factors affecting household satisfaction with electricity supply in rural India. Nature Energy 1 (11), ISSN 2058-7546.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2016) Unawareness and indifference to economic reform among the public: evidence from India’s power sector reform. Economics of Governance 17 (3), pp. 211-239. ISSN 1435-6104.
Chen, D. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2016) Support for renewable energy in China: a survey experiment with internet users. Journal of Cleaner Production 112, pp. 3750-3758. ISSN 0959-6526.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2015) Who should take the garbage out? Public opinion on waste management in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Habitat International 46, pp. 111-118. ISSN 0197-3975.
Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2014) Fuel stacking in India: changes in the cooking and lighting mix, 1987–2010. Energy 76, pp. 306-317. ISSN 0360-5442.
Cheng, Chao-Yo (2011) Poverty alleviation and development in Xinjiang. Chinese Law & Government 44 (6), pp. 3-9. ISSN 0009-4609.

Monograph

Jain, A. and Ray, S. and Ganesan, K. and Aklin, M. and Cheng, Chao-Yo and Urpelainen, J. (2015) Access to Clean Cooking Energy and Electricity Survey of States. New Delhi, India: Council on Energy, Environment and Water.

Business and community

Outreach

Roundtable: "Unpacking Taiwan's 2024 Elections," Birkbeck, University of London, March 2024

Winter School: "Using Numbers of Study Law and Politics," China (Online), January 2024

Roundtable: "BISR ECR Roundtable: The Challenges of Politicised Research," Birkbeck, University of London, May 2024

Summer School: "Causality and Causal Inference in Empirical Legal Studies: A Primer," Sichuan University School of Law, July 2024

Summer School: "Applied Big Data Analysis for Law and Social Sciences," University of International and Business Economics (Beijing, China), July 2023 and 2024