John Chin

Assistant Teaching Professor, Institute for Politics and Strategy

Bio

John J. Chin is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University, where he was previously a research coordinator and postdoctoral fellow. His academic interests span international relations and comparative politics, including the politics of coups, self-coups, assassinations, civil resistance, and personalist dictatorships.

Dr. Chin is the lead author of an Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D'état (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022). His research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, International Studies Quarterly, Comparative Political Studies, Frontiers in Political Science, the Journal of Chinese Political Science, the Brown Journal of World Affairs, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Political Violence at a Glance, The Monkey Cage, and the Washington Post. He earned a B.A. from the University of Notre Dame, M.P.P. from the University of Michigan, and Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University. Before entering academia, he was an international affairs analyst at the Congressional Budget Office.

He regularly teaches courses in IPS related to Theories of International Relations, Diplomacy and Statecraft, International Human Rights, Nonviolent Conflict and Revolution, The Future of Democracy, Civil-Military Relations, and Collaborative Research in Political Science. 

Publications

Chin, John J.,  Joseph G. Wright, and David B. Carter. Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D’état, Historical Dictionaries of War, Revolution, and Civil Unrest. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield (2022). 

Timoneda, Joan C., Abel Escribà-Folch, and John Chin. 2023. “The Rush to Personalize: Power Concentration after Failed Coups in Dictatorships.” British Journal of Political Science. Cambridge University Press, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000655.

Chin, John J. “Coup Politics in the COVID-19 Era.” The Brown Journal of World Affairs 28, 2 (2022): 161-174.

Chin, John, Wonjun Song and Joseph Wright. "Personalization of Power and Mass Uprisings in Dictatorships." British Journal of Political Science, pp. 1 - 20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000114

Chin, John, Abel Escribà-Folch, Wonjun Song, and Joseph Wright. “Reshaping the Threat Environment: Personalism, Coups, and Assassinations.” Comparative Political Studies, (January 2022). https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211024287.

Pinckney, Jonathan, and John J. Chin. "Activists Against Autocrats: TSMO Networks and Democratic Diffusion." Frontiers in Political Science (2021): 92. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.705223

Chin, John J., David B. Carter, and Joseph G. Wright. "The Varieties of Coups D’état: Introducing the Colpus Dataset." International Studies Quarterly 65, no. 4 (2021): 1040-1051. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqab058

Chin, John J. "Nonviolent revolution in China: Past and prospects." Chapter 32 in The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Studies, pp. 465-478. Routledge, 2021. https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780429059704-38/nonviolent-revolution-china-john-chin

Chin, John J. "Hong Kong’s Escalating Protests: Three Questions." Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. December 9, 2019. https://gjia.georgetown.edu/2019/12/09/three-questions-hong-kong-escalating-protests/

Chin, John J. "The Longest March: Why China’s Democratization is Not Imminent." Journal of Chinese Political Science, 23,1 (2017): 63-82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-017-9474-y