CV
You can download the latest version of my curriculum vitae here: PDF version.
Contact
- Name: LI Jiajun (Leo)
- Email: jiajun.li@connect.ust.hk
- Website: jiajunli-cn.github.io
Current Position
PhD Student in Social Science
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR
Education
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
- PhD and MPhil in Social Science, 2023-present
- Supervisor: Prof. David Hendry
Sun Yat-sen University
- Master of Sociology, 2020-2023
- Supervisor: Prof. Yucheng Liang
- Bachelor of Political Science with a minor in Statistics, 2016-2020
Research Areas
- Political behavior
- Political psychology
- Causal inference
- Experimental methods
- Survey methodology
- Computational social science
Working Papers
Reticence or Theatrics? Grassroots Cadre Presence and Political Response in Surveys
- Link: SSRN
- Survey studies struggle to eliminate response bias, yet they frequently neglect how interview context shapes answers. Using four waves of CFPS (2012-2018), this paper finds no robust evidence that cadre presence increases non-response, but clear evidence that it shifts substantive responses in politically preferred directions.
- Respondents over-report trust in grassroots officeholders and evaluations of local government performance, while under-reporting unfairness and conflict with authorities. RAG and in-context-learning simulations plus implicit association tests suggest social desirability bias is driven by authoritarian cognition.
The Long Shadow of Heroes: Martyrs’ Cemetery, Patriotic Education, and Street Crime
- Link: SSRN
- This paper examines how the state curbs crime by embedding political narratives in physical space. Using geocoded crime data and a staggered Difference-in-Differences design, it shows that Martyrs’ Cemetery Parks significantly reduce nearby crime, especially property crime.
- The effect decays with distance and operates through clustering of patriotic education venues and seasonal commemorative activities. Vignette evidence and IV estimates indicate moral suasion linked to patriotic education, rather than direct coercion.
The “Chickening-Out” Judge: Adjudicating Clan Disputes in Court
- Working paper in progress.
Research Profile
My research focuses on how political narratives, public memory, and institutional context shape attitudes and behavior. I am especially interested in politically sensitive survey response, authoritarian cognition, and the behavioral consequences of symbolic political environments.
Research Experience
Part-time Research Assistant
- 2023.04-present: Work with Prof. Chenhong Peng (The University of Hong Kong): collect and process data, conduct discourse network analysis, and draft manuscripts.
- 2018.12-present: Work with Dr. Jie Wang (South China Normal University): collect and process data, draft manuscripts, and translate a book on structural equation modeling.
Teaching Experience
Teaching Assistant
- 2025.02-2025.05 and 2026.02-2026.05: Computational Social Science (with Prof. Jinlin Wei)
- 2024.09-2024.12 and 2025.09-2025.12: Experiments and Quasi-Experiments in the Social Sciences (with Prof. David Hendry)
- 2024.01-2024.05: Data Analysis for Quantitative Social Research (with Prof. Yifan Shen)
- 2022.09-2023.01: Computational Social Science (with Prof. Yucheng Liang)
Awards
- 2024: Dr. Charles Chan Scholarship for Excellent RPG (HKD 56,280), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
- 2023-2025: Postgraduate Scholarship (HKD 220,000 per year), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
- 2022: National Scholarship (RMB 20,000), Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China
- 2020-2023: Outstanding Postgraduate (RMB 8,000 per year), Sun Yat-sen University
- 2020: Second-Class Prize for Outstanding Paper, Institute of Education, Tsinghua University
- 2017 and 2019: Outstanding Undergraduate (RMB 5,000 per year), Sun Yat-sen University
Skills
- Programming: R, Stata, Python, LaTeX
- Languages: English, Mandarin (native), Cantonese (native)
References
Available upon request.