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Affiliated Faculty

Shi078704.004Tianjian “TJ” Shi passed on Dec. 25, 2010, at the age of 59. TJ held posts at Duke and Tsinghua University in China.  He was also a senior research associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He belonged to the first generation of Chinese students who pursued advanced studies in the United States following the Cultural Revolution and has since gained wide recognition as an influential China specialist.

TJ joined the Duke faculty in 1993, where he was a mainstay in the Political Science department and worked closely with the Asian and Pacific Studies Center, and established the China Election Study Group at Duke University.

TJ is best known for his work on political participation and elections in China. His influential work, “Political Participation in Beijing,” was the first of five books and monographs that examined Chinese culture and politics.

Specialties

Comparative Politics; Security, Peace, & Conflict
Political Institutions
; Behavior & Identities

Research Summary

Asian Security Issues and Political Participation

 

TJ BookCoverTianjian Shi shows how cultural norms affect political attitudes and behavior through two causal pathways, one at the individual level and one at the community level. Focusing on two key norms – definition of self-interest and orientation to authority – he tests the theory with multiple surveys conducted in mainland China and Taiwan. Shi employs multi-level statistical analysis to show how, in these two very different political systems, similar norms exert similar kinds of influence on political trust, understanding of democracy, forms of political participation, and tolerance for protest. The approach helps to explain the resilience of authoritarian politics in China and the dissatisfaction of many Taiwan residents with democratic institutions. Aiming to place the study of political culture on a new theoretical and methodological foundation, Shi argues that a truly comparative social science must understand how culturally embedded norms influence decision making.

Citation: Shi, Tianjian. The Cultural Logic of Politics in Mainland China and Taiwan. Cambridge University Press, 2014.