Xu Xu is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Xu studies digital authoritarianism, political repression, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on China. He is currently working on a book entitled Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance. His other ongoing projects examine public opinion on state repression in authoritarian regimes, propaganda and new media in China, and state-society relations in China. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, among other peer-reviewed journals. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State University in 2019, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2020 to 2021.

Selected Publications

  • “Information Control and Public Support for Social Credit Systems in China.” (with Genia Kostka and Xun Cao). Journal of Politics (2022).

  • “Is a Crackdown on Corruption Really Good for the Economy? Firm-level Evidence From China.” (with Zhiyuan Chen and Xin Jin). Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (2021).
  • “To Repress or To Co‐opt? Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance.” American Journal of Political Science (2021).

Selected Honors and Awards

  • Best Dissertation, Information Technology and Politics Section, American Political Science Association, 2020
  • Raymond E. Lombra and Roberta Lombra Outstanding Graduate Research Award, Penn State University, 2019