With Ho-fung Hung and @profyangzhang.bsky.social, I had the pleasure of discussing David McCourt's latest book at the @socscihistory.bsky.social conference at the #PalmerHouse (flashback to @mpsa.bsky.social times) in #Chicago. Highly recommended for anyone interested in #Russia or #China experts!

📢 Do you study political #networks and use #AI-tools to gather the necessary data? Join our workshop at the #ECPRJointSessions in #Innsbruck, Austria, April 7-10, 2026, and discuss your approach and findings with like-minded peers! 📢 @ecpr.bsky.social
For more information: www.autpol.net/workshop

In the meantime we will continue to explore how opinion diffusion and homophily (the tendency to turn to experts similar to themselves), but also pressure from different governments and other powerful actors influences the conclusions that the China expert community reaches.

And while we’re quite sure that we have managed to capture the core of this network in our article, we continue to reach out to China Watchers in the less represented professions and regions – so if you receive an e-mail from us, please fill out our very short survey!

Who are the experts who explain China to us? We’ve spent the last five years asking China experts to nominate other China experts until we had gathered more than 2000 individuals across the world and in a variety of professions: doi.org/10.1017/S104...

Check out PS's latest article by @fbkeller.bsky.social and @expertsurvey.bsky.social which highlights that while there is a diverse & global community of experts on Chinese politics, it is still dominated by US-based Academics.

Check it out here: doi.org/10.1017/S104...

#polisky #academisky

Curious about whether outsiders can ever know what’s going on behind closed doors among the most powerful people in China or Russia? Check out my project on the role of country experts and their networks in generating our knowledge of authoritarian regimes: www.autpol.net