Chao-yo Cheng
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Overview
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. Before coming to Birkbeck, Chao-yo held fellowship positions at Tsinghua University (Beijing) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
His research interrogates the institutional and policy foundations of democratic and authoritarian governance in multi-ethnic societies, integrating qualitative, quantitative, and computational methods, including applications of generative AI in social sciences research.
With China as his primary case anchor and a comparative reach extending to India and Southeast Asia, his work addresses a range of core questions in comparative politics and political economy, such as the conditions sustaining authoritarian resilience (or inducing democratic backsliding), the politics of race and ethnicity, and the interplay between state capacity and nation-state building.
Office hours
Please email or use this link to make an appointment (Birkbeck login required).
Web profiles
Visiting posts
- Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics, 01 January 2026 to 01 December 2028
- Visiting Assistant Professor, University of International Business and Economics, 01 July 2023
Honours and awards
- Asia Fellow American Political Science Association, November 2021
ORCID
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Research
Research
Research interests
- Race, ethnicity, and politics
- Comparative authoritarianism and political development
- Political economy of development and institutions
- Public policy and politics of Asia (China, India, and Southeast Asia)
- Social data science
- Formal theory and quantitative methodology
Research Centres and Institutes
- Co-Director, Centre for Political Economy and Institutional Studies
- Research Associate, Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research (ICPR)
- Member, Birkbeck Research Centre in Environment and Sustainability
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Supervision and teaching
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, including:
- Democracy and authoritarianism
- Institutions and organizational behavior
- Local governance, intergovernmental relations and state-building
- Race, ethnicity, and politics
- Poverty and inequality
Students can examine single-country or comparative cases in the Global South, using contemporary or historical perspectives. I will assist in situating their research within a comprehensive theoretical framework.
Current doctoral researchers
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EGLINA BUBLIAUSKAITE
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Comparative Government
- Social Research Dissertation
- Masterclass in Social Research
- Dissertation MSc Politics
- Advanced Topics in Quantitative Social Research
- Investigating the Social World
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Ma, C. and Cheng, Chao-Yo (2026) Embedded courts under campaign-style enforcement: How top-down reforms reshape conditional justice in China. International Review of Law and Economics 86 (106331), ISSN 0144-8188.
- 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.
- 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 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.
- 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.