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zhangtaisu.bsky.social
Comparative historian, legal theorist, Chinese law and politics observer @Yale.
19 posts 1,308 followers 406 following
Regular Contributor
Posts 16 Comments 3

At this rate I’m not sure DOGE is really going to achieve its stated goal of reducing total federal government employee count, simply because there will soon be so many lawsuits and so many restraining orders that they might have to double the staff count at DOJ…

submitted 23 days ago • 0 comments

An EO (e.g., Trump’s EO seeking to “end” birthright citizenship) that delays its own implementation for 30 days from the date of issuance is obviously anticipating being quickly sued (which has already happened tonight) and stayed (which will happen within a few days) in court.

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Credible (or rather, formerly credible) commitments, once broken, are incredibly difficult to restore. This will take years of policy-based and institutional therapy, if there is indeed the political will for it. www.ft.com/content/de2c...

submitted 63 days ago • 0 comments

Final SSRN upload of 2024: a symposium essay forthcoming in YJLH that muses about why some forms of social hierarchies, however morally dubious, tend to be more historically prevalent and stickier than others. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

submitted 66 days ago • 1 comment

Second SSRN post of the week, this one on how governments produce information—and what the law can do to optimize that process. Perhaps surprisingly, core political incentives and institutional mechanisms are broadly similar across the U.S. and China. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

submitted 68 days ago • 1 comment

New paper posted to SSRN, a few more to come later this week. The primary claim in this one is that legality and authoritarianism can be politically and administratively synergistic. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

submitted 69 days ago • 0 comments

Pretty good research on the (lack of) relevance of the USNews rankings for essentially the only thing they should theoretically influence: student matriculation decisions. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

submitted 73 days ago • 0 comments

The Rosalind Picard incident from yesterday’s NeurIPS conference keynote would normally be grounds for a Title 6 complaint and investigation.

submitted 77 days ago • 0 comments

Whatever stimulus effect emerges from these rate cuts, it’s likely to flow more to debt refinancing by local governments and SOEs than to consumption or new investment. That said, devaluing the RMB is necessary, and frankly should have already happened. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/b...

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

When I left to drop my kids off at school, I thought for sure that the final Ding-Gukesh game was headed for a draw. Came back, and within minutes Ding had committed an irreparable blunder. It’s a brutal game sometimes, but congratulations to the new king. Quite the series.

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

Judging from the amount of posts here on the SK martial law declaration, it’ll be a while before this site can really compare to the other place in terms of political information…

submitted 89 days ago • 1 comment

If true, this would be… unbelievably embarrassing (third one in a row). If it triggers a more systemic anti-corruption campaign in the armed forces to clear the rot, that would probably set back near-term battle-readiness by quite a lot. www.ft.com/content/6414...

submitted 95 days ago • 0 comments

It’s now the 20th Anniversary of this episode, and it’s still the greatest college prank of all time. This also happened to be the only time I went to a Y-H Game in Cambridge. So worth it, even if the game itself was utterly forgettable. youtu.be/T4kai4FL0MQ?...

submitted 98 days ago • 0 comments

One of the most interesting articles I’ve seen in quite some time: www.cambridge.org/core/journal....

submitted 101 days ago • 1 comment

Doesn’t it feel like academic twitter/X has basically just moved here, whereas the rest of the social/political world has not? So… going forward, this app is basically going to be a networking club for scholars?

submitted 104 days ago • 3 comments

Giving this app a test run…

submitted 105 days ago • 1 comment