Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo

Didi Kuo

  • Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

Biography

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

publications

Conference Memos
April 2015

Conference Report: Lobbying and Campaign Finance [November 2014]

Author(s)
cover link Conference Report: Lobbying and Campaign Finance [November 2014]
Conference Memos
October 2014

Conference Report: Comparative Budget Policy: Lessons for Reform in the United States [May 2014]

Author(s)
cover link Conference Report: Comparative Budget Policy: Lessons for Reform in the United States [May 2014]

In The News

Hoover Tower at sunset.
Commentary

‘Still a close and hard-fought election’: Stanford experts react to presidential candidate changes

Democratic candidate Kamala Harris is set to face Donald Trump in the next presidential debate on Tuesday. With President Biden out of the race, professors expect higher voter turnout but an equally fierce competition during the 2024 election.
cover link ‘Still a close and hard-fought election’: Stanford experts react to presidential candidate changes
White House with overlayed American flag
Commentary

Stanford Scholars Discuss What’s at Stake in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

In a panel moderated by Didi Kuo, Bruce Cain, Hakeem Jefferson, and Brandice Canes-Wrone discussed the structural features of American democracy and addressed the issues, strategies, and stakes central to November’s race.
cover link Stanford Scholars Discuss What’s at Stake in the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election
Politics illustration
News

How political parties have changed over time

A number of factors have led to political parties getting weaker. Stanford political scientist Didi Kuo explains why and what implications this could have for 2024 and beyond.
cover link How political parties have changed over time