Iza Ding
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izading.bsky.social
Iza Ding
@izading.bsky.social
Political Scientist professor at Northwestern • Writer • Photographer
izading.substack.com
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The father of modern conservatism considered himself a liberal. My new essay in The Ideas Letter explores liberalism’s existential crisis—from 1789 to now.
www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-so...
The Sorrows of Burkean Liberals - The Ideas Letter
The liberal temperament espoused by Edmund Burke and revered by contemporary conservatives is marked by a profound ambivalence. Committed in principle to ideals like liberty, equality, and justice, Di...
www.theideasletter.org
New essay for my readers! Sorry-this one is long :)
Schopenhauer’s East Asian Renaissance
How a forgotten 19th-Century German philosopher became a TikTok sensation
izading.substack.com
August 4, 2025 at 10:59 PM
Beneath a Cinderella story gone wrong lies the tangled reality of class, sex, and Great Power politics. My new essay: "Anora, Russia, America"
izading.substack.com/p/anora-russ...
Anora, Russia, America
Beneath a Cinderella story gone wrong lies the tangled reality of class, sex, and Great Power politics.
izading.substack.com
June 6, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Iza Ding
So many great lines in this piece, but Mary Wollstonecraft's take on Edmund Burke feels fresh two centuries later: “Misery, to reach your heart, I perceive, must have its cap and bells.” 🔥
May 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
The father of modern conservatism considered himself a liberal. My new essay in The Ideas Letter explores liberalism’s existential crisis—from 1789 to now.
www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-so...
The Sorrows of Burkean Liberals - The Ideas Letter
The liberal temperament espoused by Edmund Burke and revered by contemporary conservatives is marked by a profound ambivalence. Committed in principle to ideals like liberty, equality, and justice, Di...
www.theideasletter.org
May 15, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Really enjoyed this conversation with two young leaders I met in Berlin, meandering through the worlds of climate change, belonging, polarization, and how to break out of echo chambers.

Young people are by definition on the right side of history, and we all need to pay attention.

tiny.cc/fp3c001
#21 - Iza Ding: Social Polarization, Climate Change Perception, and the Power of Stories
A Seat at the Table · Episode
open.spotify.com
March 4, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Iza Ding
The brilliant @izading.bsky.social will be giving a talk at Leiden University on March 19th, discussing authoritarian teleology 🔥 www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/events/20... Looking forward to it.
Authoritarian Teleology
After the fall of the Soviet Union and the withering away of planned economies, the 20th-century literature on communism shifted decisively toward the 21st-century literature on authoritarianism. Iza ...
www.universiteitleiden.nl
March 3, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Reposted by Iza Ding
This was a great episode and @izading.bsky.social dissected the pre-existing discourse in a brilliant manner.
November 27, 2024 at 9:19 PM
Reposted by Iza Ding

Definitely one of my favorites of the year was a conversation with political scientist @izading.bsky.social, who offers trenchant critiques of some current ideas in Western studies of Chinese politics. art19.com/shows/sinica...
Political Scientist Iza Ding on Authoritarianism, Legitimacy, and "Resilience"
This week on Sinica, Iza Ding, associate professor of political science at Northwestern University and author of The Performative State: Public Scrutiny and Environmental Governance in China, joins to...
art19.com
November 27, 2024 at 8:49 PM
Reposted by Iza Ding
@izading.bsky.social 's deep dive into Chinese view of "declinism". TLDR: "We should be careful not to let a question turn into a prophecy. Rises and falls need not be an inter-civilizational zero-sum struggle, however seductive Thucydides’ lair may seem"

www.theideasletter.org/essay/goodby...
Goodbye, Gibbon - The Ideas Letter
Western historiography generally understands history as a line and is preoccupied with the rise and fall of empires. In China however the line of history is an ever-repeating circle, with…
www.theideasletter.org
November 24, 2024 at 12:21 PM
My essay “Goodbye, Gibbon” for The Ideas Letter theideasletter.org from the Open Society Foundation. In which I offer non-answers to the question “Is America in decline from a Chinese perspective?”
Goodbye, Gibbon - The Ideas Letter
Western historiography generally understands history as a line and is preoccupied with the rise and fall of empires. In China however the line of history is an ever-repeating circle, with…
www.theideasletter.org
November 14, 2024 at 11:31 PM