Didi Kuo
Biographic Data
| ID | 4375249 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Didi Kuo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Didi |
| FAMILY NAME | Kuo |
| SIGNATURE | KUO D |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9762-0024 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Building the Plane While Flying: Informal State Capacity, Policy Autonomy, and Public Health
Public health infrastructure varies widely at the local, state, and national levels, and the COVID-19 response revealed just how critical local health authority can be. Public health officials created COVID policies, enforced behavioral and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and communicated with the public. This article explores the determinants of public health capacity, distinguishing between formal institutional capacity (i.e., budget, staff) …
Civil Society in the Neoliberal Age: Response to John Keane, “Hopes for Civil Society”
What is the transformative potential of civil society in the neoliberal era? This essay responds to John Keane’s “Hopes for Civil Society.” While civil society plays an integral role in democratic transition, its role in countries experiencing democratic backsliding or erosion is less clear. In the longstanding liberal democracies today, political party ties to civil society groups have weakened, parties are less differentiated on economic policy…
Democratization and the Franchise
Understanding why elites extend the franchise is one of the central questions in comparative politics. However, most theories fail to account for subsequent extensions of voting rights to once-excluded groups, including women, racial and religious minorities, and the poor. This article reviews three new books in comparative politics that focus on the struggle for voting rights and representation in the first-wave democracies. These books challeng…
Comparing America: Reflections on Democracy across Subfields
Is America in a period of democratic decline? I argue that there is an urgent need to consider the United States in comparative perspective, and that doing so is necessary to contextualize and understand the quality of American democracy. I describe two approaches to comparing the United States: the first shows how the United States stacks up to other countries, while the second uses the theories and tools of comparative politics to examine relat…
Are Strong Parties the Answer
Are Strong Parties the Answer? Didi Kuo (bio) Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Who, or what, is responsible for the crisis of liberal democracy today? Voters have expressed growing levels of dissatisfaction with their governments, culminating in the election of populist and illiberal leaders. This dissatisfaction is rooted in many trends—economi…
Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: The Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain
Political parties in the United States and Britain used clientelism and patronage to govern throughout the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, however, parties in both countries shifted to programmatic competition. This book argues that capitalists were critical to this shift. Businesses developed new forms of corporate management and capitalist organization, and found clientelism inimical to economic development. Drawing on extensive a…
Illicit Tactics as Substitutes: Election Fraud, Ballot Reform, and Contested Congressional Elections in the United States, 1860-1930
What is the relationship between ballot reforms and electoral malpractice? This article contributes to the growing comparative politics literature on the causes of election fraud in democratizing countries using the case of the 19th-century United States. We examine adoption of the Australian ballot and disenfranchisement laws, and estimate their effects on multiple types of election fraud. Using a new measure of fraud in elections to the House o…
Illicit Tactics as Substitutes: Election Fraud, Ballot Reform, and Contested Congressional Elections in the United States, 1860-1930
What is the relationship between ballot reforms and electoral malpractice? This article contributes to the growing comparative politics literature on the causes of election fraud in democratizing countries using the case of the 19th-century United States. We examine adoption of the Australian ballot and disenfranchisement laws, and estimate their effects on multiple types of election fraud. Using a new measure of fraud in elections to the House o…
Building the Plane While Flying: Informal State Capacity, Policy Autonomy, and Public Health
Public health infrastructure varies widely at the local, state, and national levels, and the COVID-19 response revealed just how critical local health authority can be. Public health officials created COVID policies, enforced behavioral and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and communicated with the public. This article explores the determinants of public health capacity, distinguishing between formal institutional capacity (i.e., budget, staff) …
Comparing America: Reflections on Democracy across Subfields
Is America in a period of democratic decline? I argue that there is an urgent need to consider the United States in comparative perspective, and that doing so is necessary to contextualize and understand the quality of American democracy. I describe two approaches to comparing the United States: the first shows how the United States stacks up to other countries, while the second uses the theories and tools of comparative politics to examine relat…
Democratization and the Franchise
Understanding why elites extend the franchise is one of the central questions in comparative politics. However, most theories fail to account for subsequent extensions of voting rights to once-excluded groups, including women, racial and religious minorities, and the poor. This article reviews three new books in comparative politics that focus on the struggle for voting rights and representation in the first-wave democracies. These books challeng…
Are Strong Parties the Answer
Are Strong Parties the Answer? Didi Kuo (bio) Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Who, or what, is responsible for the crisis of liberal democracy today? Voters have expressed growing levels of dissatisfaction with their governments, culminating in the election of populist and illiberal leaders. This dissatisfaction is rooted in many trends—economi…
Illicit Tactics as Substitutes: Election Fraud, Ballot Reform, and Contested Congressional Elections in the United States, 1860-1930
What is the relationship between ballot reforms and electoral malpractice? This article contributes to the growing comparative politics literature on the causes of election fraud in democratizing countries using the case of the 19th-century United States. We examine adoption of the Australian ballot and disenfranchisement laws, and estimate their effects on multiple types of election fraud. Using a new measure of fraud in elections to the House o…
Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: The Rise of Programmatic Politics in the United States and Britain
Political parties in the United States and Britain used clientelism and patronage to govern throughout the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, however, parties in both countries shifted to programmatic competition. This book argues that capitalists were critical to this shift. Businesses developed new forms of corporate management and capitalist organization, and found clientelism inimical to economic development. Drawing on extensive a…
Comparing America: Reflections on Democracy across Subfields
Is America in a period of democratic decline? I argue that there is an urgent need to consider the United States in comparative perspective, and that doing so is necessary to contextualize and understand the quality of American democracy. I describe two approaches to comparing the United States: the first shows how the United States stacks up to other countries, while the second uses the theories and tools of comparative politics to examine relat…
Are Strong Parties the Answer
Are Strong Parties the Answer? Didi Kuo (bio) Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself By Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Who, or what, is responsible for the crisis of liberal democracy today? Voters have expressed growing levels of dissatisfaction with their governments, culminating in the election of populist and illiberal leaders. This dissatisfaction is rooted in many trends—economi…
Civil Society in the Neoliberal Age: Response to John Keane, “Hopes for Civil Society”
What is the transformative potential of civil society in the neoliberal era? This essay responds to John Keane’s “Hopes for Civil Society.” While civil society plays an integral role in democratic transition, its role in countries experiencing democratic backsliding or erosion is less clear. In the longstanding liberal democracies today, political party ties to civil society groups have weakened, parties are less differentiated on economic policy…
Democratization and the Franchise
Understanding why elites extend the franchise is one of the central questions in comparative politics. However, most theories fail to account for subsequent extensions of voting rights to once-excluded groups, including women, racial and religious minorities, and the poor. This article reviews three new books in comparative politics that focus on the struggle for voting rights and representation in the first-wave democracies. These books challeng…
Building the Plane While Flying: Informal State Capacity, Policy Autonomy, and Public Health
Public health infrastructure varies widely at the local, state, and national levels, and the COVID-19 response revealed just how critical local health authority can be. Public health officials created COVID policies, enforced behavioral and non-pharmaceutical interventions, and communicated with the public. This article explores the determinants of public health capacity, distinguishing between formal institutional capacity (i.e., budget, staff) …
Political science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Political economy (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Democracy (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Public Administration (5 works) · Economics (4 works) · Public Administration (4 works) · Sociology (4 works)