4. Varieties of Stranded Asset Management: Comparing East Asian Investors’ Support for Energy Transition in Indonesia
(with Yixian Sun and Putu Agung Nara Indra Prima Satya)
Abstract: Achieving the Paris Agreement’s goals requires a rapid transition of our energy system away from fossil fuels. This transition is especially needed in large emerging economies where electricity consumption and greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase. While many emerging economies have made net zero pledges, their transitions are often under the influence of foreign investors who control significant amounts of assets in their energy sector. Focusing on the case of Indonesia – a major emerging economy with a coal power-based electricity sector but committed to clean energy transition, we examine existing strategies taken by investors from China, Japan, and South Korea to support the country’s coal phaseout. The three East Asian countries together have financed most of the coal-produced electricity in Indonesia but seem to have taken different strategies in engaging with Indonesia’s energy transition. Using data from various sources, we show that Japanese investors have agreed to finance early retirement of a plant (Cirebon 1) whilst South Korean investors have planned to transform two plants to hybrid ones utilizing green ammonia and hydrogen (Java 9 and 10). In the meantime, China has yet to make any concrete action to support the phaseout of coal power in Indonesia apart from broad cooperation agreements to promote renewables. Based on the variation observed, we propose a framework on the political economy of international support for energy transition in emerging economies, which highlights investors’ comparative advantages on funding and technology. Our study advance understanding on foreign influence on developing countries’ low-carbon transition.
3. Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures: External Support, Internal Strength, and the Strategy of Minority Repression
(with Chen-Yu Lee and Howard Liu)
Abstract: Why do states, when facing ethnic separatist threats, sometimes opt for settler colonization while other times use extreme violence like genocide? Existing theories offer limited insights into variations in repressive choices. We propose that external support and a minority’s separation potential influence state choices. If external powers support a domestic minority group with weak insurgency capabilities, states favor a gradual approach, like internal colonization, to solidify control over minority-concentrated territories. However, when a minority group has strong insurgent capabilities and receives external support, the secession threat intensifies. This urgency pushes states towards immediate, drastic measures like genocide for swift control. Our research, using new data on ethnicity and violence from Mao’s China, corroborates this argument. The findings demonstrate how the immediacy of threats determines not only the presence but also the methods of repression and carry implications for human rights for minorities.
Abstract: Why do some rebel elites split from their organizations while others remain? Despite extensive research on rebel fragmentation, individual-level variation in splitting behavior remains poorly understood. This article develops a hierarchy-centric theory through in-depth analysis of two Chinese rebel organizations: the Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party and the Communist Party’s Red Army during critical splits in 1927 and 1935. Based on systematic process tracing, we derive a theoretical framework suggesting that organizational rank, rather than ideological, class, or ethnic differences, primarily determines who exits during rebel splits. Our analysis reveals how organizational hierarchy creates grievances among lower-ranked elites and structures preference divergence into leadership disputes. In addition, we discover that the outcome of these disputes - clear victory or stalemate - determines whether incumbents or challengers form splinter groups, explaining why organizational hierarchy produces opposite exit patterns across different cases. Despite distinct ideologies, social compositions, and external support, both cases show organizational position consistently predicting exit decisions while ideological and socioeconomic factors do not. When lower-ranked challengers won (IMPRP), incumbents departed; during stalemate (Red Army), challengers exited. These patterns suggest rebel fragmentation follows predictable organizational logics rather than ad hoc factional grievances, offering new insights for understanding civil war dynamics.
1. The Political Geography of State-owned Enterprises and Conflict in Ethnically Divided Societies: Evidence from China
(with Xun Cao)
Abstract: In many ethnically divided societies, the state uses state-owned enterprise (SOE) employment as a type of cross-ethnic patronage to stabilize inter-ethnic relations. However, as increasing the allocation of SOE jobs crowds out fiscal resources that can be used to supply public goods, the state faces a trade-off between offering SOE jobs and providing public goods in curbing ethnic strife. We argue that the impact of SOE employment on ethnic conflict is conditioned upon local ethnic geography. In ethnically homogeneous areas where minorities constitute local majorities, public goods are highly valued because they can be tailored to shared cultural and economic preferences. In these contexts, SOE employment is a less effective stabilization tool, and expanding SOEs increases conflict risk by diverting resources from more valued public goods. Conversely, in ethnically heterogeneous areas, public goods lose their effectiveness as they must satisfy competing group preferences, making SOE jobs relatively more valuable as a pacification tool. Consequently, SOE employment only reduces conflict in ethnically diverse communities while paradoxically increasing conflict risk in homogeneous minority areas. To test this proposition, we combine fine-grained firm-level information with county-level data on ethnic conflict in in China’s Xinjiang region. Using a county-year panel dataset of Xinjiang from 1997 to 2008, we find that increases in SOE employment exacerbate conflict in ethnically homogeneous areas but reduce it in ethnically diverse areas.