Rongbin Han Joined the Department of International Affairs, University of Georgia in 2013. He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley in 2012.
Dr. Han’s research interests are social activism, media politics, political participation, and democratization. His area focus is China. He has published on topics including rural democracy in China, Internet politics, local governance, and heritage preservation mobilization. His book, Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience, examines Internet governance in China. By investigating the struggles over online expression—both as a cat-and-mouse censorship game and from the angle of discourse competition—it makes a two-fold counter-intuitive claim: (1) the Chinese party-state can almost indefinitely co-exist with the expansion of emancipating Internet; (2) but the key explanation for this co-existence does not lie in the state’s capacity to control and adapt, as many have argued, but more so in the pluralization of online expression, which empowers not only regime critics, but also pro-regime voices, particularly pro-state nationalism.
Dr. Han is also working on several other projects, including politics of land appropriation in China, cyber nationalism, and authoritarian legitimation.
Books
- 2023.of Directed Digital Dissidence in Autocracies: How China Wins Online (with Jason Gainous, Kevin Wagner, and Andrew MacDonald). Oxford University Press.
- 2018. Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience Columbia University Press.
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles
- 2023. “Racial and Gender Stereotypes in Immigration Attitudes: Evidence from China” (with Li Shao, Juan Du and Dongshu Liu). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49(9): 2391-2415.
- 2023. “How does Marriage Demand Stimulate Support for Immigration in Asia?” (with Li Shao, Juan Du and Dongshu Liu). Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 49(5): 1311-1330.
- 2023. “Opportunistic Bargaining: Negotiating Distribution in China” (with Juan Du and Li Shao). The China Quarterly, 253: 141-157.
- 2023. “Cosmetic Responsiveness: Why and How Local Authorities Respond to Mundane Online Complaints in China” (with Yuan Wang). Journal of Chinese Political Science 28(2): 187–207.
- 2023. “Debating China beyond the Great Firewall: Digital Disenchantment and Authoritarian Resilience.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 28(1): 85-103.
- 2022. “Scaling Authoritarian Information Control: How China Adjusts the Level of Online Censorship” (with Li Shao). Political Research Quarterly 75(4): 1345-1359.
- 2022. “Defusing Environmental Activism Through Scientific Greening: Government Framing Strategy and Its Effects in China” (with Juan Du and Weixia Lv). Environmental Policy and Governance 32(2): 135-148.
- 2022. “Modernization Planner, Authoritarian Paternalist, and Rising Power: Evolving Government Positions in China’s Internet Securitization” (with Weishan Miao). Journal of Contemporary China 31(136): 574-591.
- 2021. “Cyber Nationalism and Regime Support under Xi Jinping: The Effects of the 2018 Constitutional Revision.” Journal of Contemporary China 30(131): 717-733.
- 2018. “Withering Gongzhi: Cyber Criticism of Chinese Public Intellectuals.” The International Journal of Communication 12: 1966-1987.
- 2018. “Governing by the Internet: Local Governance in the Digital Age” (with Linan Jia). Journal of Chinese Governance 3(1): 67-85. * The article is reprinted in Jianxing Yu and Sujian Guo (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Local Governance in Contemporary China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019): 421-440.
- 2017. “Supervising Authoritarian Rule Online: Citizen Participation and State Responses in China.” The Journal of Comparative Law 12 (2): 397-416. * The article is reprinted in Hualing Fu, Michael Palmer, and Xianchu Zhang (eds.) Transparency Challenges Facing China (Wildy, Simmonds & Hill Publishing, 2019).
- 2016. “Challenging, But Not Trouble-Making: Cultural Elites in China’s Heritage Preservation” (with Yao Yuan). Journal of Contemporary China 25(98): 292-306.
- 2015. “Defending the Authoritarian Regime Online: China’s ‘Voluntary Fifty-Cent Army’.” The China Quarterly, 224: 1006-1025.
- 2015. “College Education and Attitudes toward Democracy in China: An Empirical Study” (with Gang Wang and Liyun Wu). Asia Pacific Education Review 16(3): 399-412.
- 2015. “Manufacturing Consent in Cyberspace: China’s ‘Fifty-Cent Army’.” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 44(2): 105-134.
- 2009. “Path to Democracy? Assessing Village Elections in China” (with Kevin J. O’Brien). Journal of Contemporary China 18(60): 359-378. *The article received the 2018 John and Vivian Sabel Award for the best article published in the Journal of Contemporary China. * The article has been reprinted in Kevin O’Brien and Zhao Suisheng (eds.), Grassroots Elections in China (London: Routledge, 2011), and in Anthony Saich (ed.), Political Governance in China (Elgar, 2015). It is also translated in 国外理论动态 (Foreign Theoretical Trends), 7 (2011): 59-70.
Translation
- Chinese Translation of W. Phillips Shively, The Craft of Political Research (6th Edition) (Prentice Hall Press, 2006) (with Jiguang Guo, Hengfu Ruan, Yuanyuan Wang, and Dan Li), (政治科学研究方法, W. Phillips Shively著, 新知译, 上海人民出版社, 2006).
