Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica

Wen-Hsuan Tsai, research fellow in the Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica. Dr. Tsai graduated from the Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies, National Chengchi University (ROC) in June 2010. His main research areas are the political system of the Chinese Communist Party, political reform and transformation of the Chinese Communist Party, grassroots governance in mainland China, and comparative authoritarian regimes. Dr. Tsai published an academic book entitled The Logic of Political Reform in Mainland China: A Comparative Study of Sichuan, Guangdong, and Jiangsu (in Chinese), as well as a book with Prof. Chien-Wen Kou: Targeting the 18th Party Congress: The CCP′s Fifth Generation of Political Leaders (in Chinese). Dr. Tsai published three books in English so far, including: The Inner Court of Communist China: Elites and Their Bureaucratic Institutions in an Authoritarian System (1921-2022) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2025), A Tight Grip: State Power and Control in Modern China (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2025), and Institutional Centralization: Leadership and Policy Implementation in Xi Jinping′s China (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2026). In addition, he has published many English papers in SSCI-ranking journals such as The China Journal, The China Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, China Review, China Information, China Perspectives, Journal of East Asian Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Asian Survey, Critical Asian Studies, Modern China, China: An International Journal, and African and Asian Studies, as well as several TSSCI-ranking journals.