About me
Welcome!
I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Deparment of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis (WashU).
My research lies at the intersection of authoritarian politics, political communication, political psychology, and public diplomacy. It is unified to investigate a central question: how do political elites garner voluntary support among the masses, particularly under adverse conditions where citizens may actively resist their rhetoric or policies? My dissertation answers this question by examining how the Chinese regime responds to revelations of widespread corruption through the strategic use of entertainment β a largely understudied dimension of the media landscape β to design engaging stories for persuasion. More broadly, I study how politicians in autocracies and democracies employ nuanced communication strategies and policy initiatives to counter threats to their political survival. I extend my work to probing how cross-border communication, notably public diplomacy, affects foreign policy attitudes and broader dynamics of conflict deescalation.
Methodlogically, I adopt a multi-method approach, including experiments, computational methods (text-as-data), design-based causal inference, qualitative content analysis, and interviews.
Prior to my PhD journey, I participated in a Double Degree Program fully sponsored by the Bai Xian Asia Insitute (BXAI). Through this program, I earned a Bachelor of Science in Global China Studies (GCS) from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and a Bachelor of Art in Economics from Waseda University in 2020.
Please feel free to reach me at weiye.deng@wustl.edu.