Sinan Chu
Political Science / Ph.D. Candidate
Sub-fields:
Comparative Politics,
International Relations
Interests
Authoritarian Politics, Chinese Politics, State-Intellectual Relations, Theories of International Relations, Constructivism
Biography
Sinan is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Political
Science at Maxwell School, Syracuse University and a Visiting Fellow at German
Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA), Hamburg, Germany from 2016 to 2017
(under a scholarship from Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung). Original from Beijing,
China, he left his hometown in 2003 to pursue a BA in International Politics at
Nanjing University (Jiangsu, China). In 2008 he began his graduate study in the
United States. He has received a MA in Political Science and a MA in
International Relations from Maxwell School, and has been a doctoral student
since 2011.
Sinan’s interests cover a wide range of topics in
comparative politics, international relations, and political theory. Among
them, one thing that attracts him particularly is the role of idea in politics.
Consequently, he likes to look at the operation of authoritarian regimes –
another research interest of his – from a historical and sociological
perspective. In Sinan’s on-going dissertation project, he examines the interplay
between knowledge and governance in post-Mao China. In particular, this project
asks: what is the role of the Chinese social scientific community on ethnic
minority policymaking of the authoritarian Chinese state? Using evidence from a
variety of Chinese language sources including academic books and journals,
government documents, and news reports, as well as an 18-month fieldwork during
which he extensively engaged academics across the country, Sinan wants to argue
that the failure of academic community to foster critical voices against
Han-centric nationalism ought to be responsible for the current deadlock in
China’s ethnic policy reform as well as the regressive policy practices.
Sinan also collaborates with his colleagues at Syracuse on a
number of other projects, including representational politics in US foreign
policy discourse, public consultation and policymaking in authoritarian
regimes, and knowledge production behind China’s One-Belt-One-Road Imitative
(OBOR). In addition to research, Sinan also likes being a teacher. He enjoys
designing lecture, leading discussion, creating in-class activities, and taking
students for site-visits. At Syracuse University, Sinan has served as teaching
assistant for International Relations (PSC 124), International Law (PSC 352),
and Media and Politics (PSC 315). From 2014 to 2015, he also taught an
independent seminar on Minority Policy and National Identity in China (PSC 300)
at the SU-Beijing Center at Tsinghua University, Beijing.
In his spare time, Sinan loves watching sci-fi movies,
listening to pop-music from the ‘90s, running with his FiveFingers, and
chatting about Žižek, Gramsci, and John Searle.