Bio
Honggang Tan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Political Science Department at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. He received a bachelor's in economics (1998) and a master of laws (2004) from Peking University.
Research Interests
My research interests straddle public policy and administration and comparative politics. My area focus is East Asia and Greater China in particular. I am interested in the formation and political participation of civil society and its implications for the improvement of democratic governance and civil rights and liberties.
Research Grant Awards and Projects
My dissertation title is “Dancing in Chains: Policy Influence of China’s Social Organizations.” In this research, I explore the status quo of policy influence of a wide range of social organizations in China and explain their influence by interactions between the government and these organizations and organizational factors attached to them. This research involves intensive field work in China and relies on data collected through interviews, surveys, and purchasing first-hand and second-hand materials.
As the first systematic study on policy influence of China’s social organizations, this dissertation is one of the critical steps of paving the way to new understanding of China’s state-society relations, policy making and political participation. This project has been funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange.
I am working on a project with Professor Hongying Wang, which studies the influence of the media on the judicial system in China. It derives from a collaborative project when we were research fellows of the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics, and the Media in Syracuse University.
Selected Publications
Honggang Tan and Luozhong Wang. 2012. “Policy Influence of Women’s Organizations in China,” Women’s Policy Journal of Harvard Vol.9 (Spring 2012): 42-55.
“Dynamics of Policy Change in China: A Case Study of the Renewable Energy Law,” Chinese Public Administration Review (Published by the National Center for Public Productivity, Rutgers University-Campus Newark) 4 (1/2), 2007: 57-71.
Previous Teaching Appointments
Sep. 2007-Dec. 2007, Teaching Assistant, Comparative Government and Politics
Jan. 2007-May 2007, Teaching Assistant, Comparative Government and Politics
Sep. 2006-Dec. 2006, Teaching Assistant, Quantitative Skills in International