Research
My dissertation examines the often-overlooked capacity of religious beliefs to deescalate political conflict. While scholars widely recognize that religion can amplify nationalist fervor and escalate aggression, my research identifies conditions under which religious doctrines may channel grievances away from violence, privileging tactics like suicide protest over suicide bombing. Through a multi-methods approach combining doctrinal analysis, survey data, and case studies, I trace how pacifist religious teachings seep into political preferences, in turn influencing conflict strategies and nonviolent tactics. This research, built on extensive fieldwork among Tibetan and Sinhalese monastics, highlights how religious doctrines can reshape collective identities, alter political preferences, and foster real alternatives to belligerent nationalism. A second strand of my research focuses on China’s transnational repression, a subject with major implications for US foreign policy and national security. Tracking the mechanisms and pathways of transnational repression, I study how authoritarian states use extensive data gathering schemes to link individual exiles to their vulnerable family members back home, with the goal of using the family’s hypothetical safety as ransom to buy the silence of the targeted exile.
Scholarly Publications
“Erasing Tibet,” in Foreign Affairs. With co-author Gyal Lo, University of Toronto. November 2023. Link.
“Learning to be Chinese: colonial-style boarding schools on the Tibetan plateau,” in Comparative Education. With co-author James Leibold, La Trobe University. Aug 2023 Special Issue. Link
“South Asia’s Tibetan Refugee Community Is Shrinking, Imperiling Its Long-Term Future,” in Migration Information Source, Feb 8, 2024. Link
“L’auto-immolation, une forme de résistance non-violente?” in Alternatives non-violentes, #206, March 2023. With co-author Amber French.
“Breaking Han Silence,” in the Journal of Democracy, December 2022. Link
“Foreign Policy and Religion: Tibetan Independence Movement,” in Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, edited by Paul A. Djupe, Mark J. Rozell, Ted G. Jelen, published 2020. Link
“Tibetan Strategies and Chinese Counter-Strategies, 1985-2009,” in Asian American Policy Review, 2018-2019, Vol. 29. Link
Monograph: The Tibetan Nonviolent Struggle: A Strategic and Historical and Analysis (International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, 2015). Link
“Diplomacy vs. Mobilization: Tibetan Dilemma in the Struggle with China,” in China’s Internal and External Relations and Lessons for Korea and Asia, edited by Dr. Jae Ku & Dr. Bae Jung Ho (Korea Institute for National Unification, 2014). Link
Policy Publications
“Dying in Truth: A Closer Look at Self-immolations in Freedom Struggles,” Minds of the Movement Blog. With co-author Amber French. International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, December 12, 2022. Link
“Why Beijing Wants the Dalai Lama to Reincarnate,” China Brief, Vol. 22, Issue 5, Jamestown Foundation, March 11, 2022. Link
“The Question of Tibet-Xinjiang Equivalence: China’s Recent Policies in its Far West,” Asia Unbound, Council on Foreign Relations, May 6, 2021. Link
“Divide, Depoliticize, and Demobilize: China’s Strategies for Controlling the Tibetan Diaspora,” China Brief, Vol. 21, Issue 18, Jamestown Foundation, September 24, 2021. Link
“Anti-China is not Anti-Asian,” The Washington Post, April 6, 2021. Link
“WeChat Ban is a Difficult but Necessary Step Toward Opening China,” The Washington Post, September 18, 2020. Link
Working Papers
“The Puzzle of Suicide Protest: Why Some Nationalists Die Without Killing”
“Why Are Some Buddhist Nationalisms More Violent Than Others?”
“How Democratic is the Tibetan Exile Polity?”