LIAO Li

Ph.D

Department of Politics & Public Administration, The University of Hong Kong

See My CV
Portrait of LIAO Li

About Me

I study comparative politics, with a focus on authoritarian regimes. My research interests can be broadly categorized into three areas: (1) political survival in authoritarian regimes, (2) information politics, and (3) computational methods for policy texts.

In my thesis project, I draw empirical insights from the legal system in both modern and ancient China and model how authoritarian leaders manage bureaucratic discretion. I also collaborate on developing new methods to analyze the structure and content of policy texts.

I write random stuff on Notion.

Educational Background

September 2014 – July 2018

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China

BA in Public Administration

August 2018 – April 2020

The Ohio State University

MPA

August 2020 – April 2025

The University of Hong Kong

Ph.D in Politics and Public Administration

Working Projects

A collage of documents and topic modeling outputs

The “Trap of Metaphor”: Applications and Boundaries of Topic Models in the Social Sciences

With Hongtao Yi and Naikang Feng

Fun Projects

Preview of the CPED leadership network visualization

CPED Leadership Network Visualization

An interactive tool for exploring Chinese political elite trajectories using Jiang Junyan’s CPED dataset, with search-driven reports and geographic visualizations.

Programming Proficiency

  • Python
  • R
  • JavaScript
  • Stata
  • MongoDB