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My research examines how people collectively shape cities and the institutions that govern them. I study how institutions structure participation, how competing visions and preferences are translated into policy, and how these processes shape places and collective life. This research agenda currently develops across two interconnected programs: Heritage, Cities & Placemaking and Fiscal Democracy & Democratic Innovation.
I. Heritage, Cities & Placemaking
I. Heritage, Cities & Placemaking
My research on heritage, cities, and placemaking examines how the politics of historic preservation shapes the built environment and, through it, the character of cities. I study how people construct the meaning and value of the urban past, how they participate in negotiating competing preferences and visions of the city through political and institutional processes, and how these struggles determine what remains materially present in the urban landscape and becomes part of the city’s future.
My dissertation, Shaping Global-City Character: Cultural Heritage Production and Urban Governance in 21st-Century Taipei, provides the foundation for my ongoing research on heritage, cities, and placemaking. The project examines how competing visions of the city are negotiated through the institutional politics of heritage production and translated into the built environment. I am currently developing several parts of the dissertation into standalone articles while extending its broader argument toward a book on heritage production and global city-making.
SELECTED RECOGNITIONTaiwanese Overseas Pioneers Grants (TOP Grants) for PhD CandidatesNational Science and Technology Council, Taiwan · 2024Taiwan Studies Doctoral Dissertation FellowshipUC San Diego Center for Taiwan Studies · 2024
The Institutional Politics of Heritage Production
Manuscript in preparationThe Institutional Politics of Heritage Production
Who governs local heritage production? Why are some voices more consequential than others?
Examines how institutional mechanisms make some stakeholders’ expressed preferences more consequential than others in shaping heritage designation outcomes.
Participatory governance · Preference–policy link · Logistic regressionDistinguished Graduate Student Paper AwardPacific Sociological Association · 2026VIEW ANNOUNCEMENT →
The Meaning of Heritage
Manuscript in preparationThe Meaning of Heritage
What does heritage mean through the eyes of the local state?
Examines authorized heritage discourse as a window into how Taipei understands and narrates itself, asking how heritage production constructs the city’s identity and urban character.
Urban identity · Authorized heritage discourse · Content analysis
Contested Urban Imaginaries
Article in developmentContested Urban Imaginaries
How is the politics of the future manifested in the politics of the past?
Examines competing market-oriented and lived-experience-based urban imaginaries surrounding Taipei’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory and how they generate different placemaking strategies for determining whether—and how—the existing built environment belongs in the city’s future.
Politics of placemaking · Urban imaginaries · Qualitative case study
Governing Contested Heritage
Article in developmentGoverning Contested Heritage
How does the Heritage Review Board manage competing tensions moving forward?
Traces successive rounds of Heritage Review Board deliberation over Taipei’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory to examine how heritage authorities navigate changing political tensions and develop governance strategies for moving contested heritage forward.
Urban governance · Governance strategies · Qualitative case studyUnboxing Heritage Governance
PublishedUnboxing Heritage Governance
What does heritage governance actually entail?
Maps the practices of heritage governance by examining the agenda items of Taipei’s Heritage Review Board from 2002 to 2023, identifying the substantive domains through which heritage is produced, conserved, and governed.
Governance practices · Governance agenda · Content analysisTaipei Historical Documents Quarterly (2024, in Chinese) READ ARTICLE →
Perceived Heritage Value & Democratic Participation
Ongoing researchPerceived Heritage Value & Democratic Participation
How is perceived heritage value associated with political mobilization around historic preservation?
Estimates perceived heritage value to examine whether—and how—people’s valuation of the built environment is associated with their mobilization around historic preservation.
Political mobilization · Heritage valuation · Hedonic pricing + spatial analysisWhen Historic Preservation Movements Succeed
Ongoing researchWhen Historic Preservation Movements Succeed
Why do grassroots historic preservation movements succeed in some cases but fail in others?
Compares preservation movements surrounding Taipei’s Nangang Bottle Cap Factory and Taipei Railway Workshop to identify the mobilization processes, activist strategies, and political conditions under which grassroots preservation movements successfully resist market-oriented redevelopment pressures.
Cultural activism · Mobilization strategies · Comparative case studyDiscursive Strategies & Policy Outcomes
Ongoing researchDiscursive Strategies & Policy Outcomes
How do stakeholders’ discursive strategies shape heritage designation?
Examines whether—and how—different ways of articulating and justifying stakeholder claims are associated with heritage designation outcomes.
Institutional politics · Discursive strategies · Computational text analysisII. Fiscal Democracy & Democratic Innovation
II. Fiscal Democracy & Democratic Innovation
My research on fiscal democracy and democratic innovation examines how people collectively make decisions about public resources and, through these decisions, shape the future of collective life in cities. I study how political and institutional conditions shape the development of participatory governance practices, how democratic innovations travel across places or emerge locally, and how the structure of fiscal decision-making shapes citizens’ choices about taxation and public spending.
Tax First, Ask Questions Later
Manuscript in preparationTax First, Ask Questions Later
Under what conditions are voters willing to approve tax increases?
Examines California local tax referenda to assess whether the timing of policy implementation shapes voters’ willingness to approve new taxes.
Fiscal democracy · Policy timing · Logistic regressionWith Isaac Martin, Heather Harper, and Germano RibeiroHow Participatory Budgeting Emerges: Policy Diffusion and Local Innovation
Completed researchHow Participatory Budgeting Emerges: Policy Diffusion and Local Innovation
Under what conditions can participatory budgeting emerge without policy diffusion?
Compares two California cities that faced fiscal stress in the early 2010s: Vallejo, where policy entrepreneurs introduced an established participatory budgeting model, and Stockton, where similar participatory practices emerged without adopting—or even naming—participatory budgeting as their model.
Democratic innovation · Policy diffusion · Comparative case studyHow Participatory Budgeting Travels
Completed researchHow Participatory Budgeting Travels
How does participatory budgeting travel to New York City?
Traces how participatory budgeting traveled to New York City by following the actors and networks through which it became an obligatory point of passage that aligned stakeholders with different interests around the adoption of the democratic innovation.
Democratic innovation · Policy transfer · Actor-Network TheoryMaster’s thesis, Columbia UniversityPage updated
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