Lab

Introduction

Mission

Mission 1

Advance Methods for the Study of Power

Operationalize the Networks and Organizations paradigm for empirical research.

Exploit new methods for extracting data from text

Mission 2

Build Databases to Support our Research

Nets & Orgs databases measure the acquisition and exercise of power

Text-based databases are repositories from which measures can be extracted

Mission 3

Unveil the Organization of Power in Asia

Unveil political organization in democratic and autocratic polities across Asia

Track how the organization of power affects governance and development outcomes

Mission 4

Train Researchers in Computational Methods

Create training materials for AI, data science, text analysis, and computational social science.

Provide practical, hands-on instruction for students and researchers.

Research Focus

Our research program combines two complementary Analytic Approaches. Networks & Organizations examines how relationships, institutions, and organizational structures shape power through Research Streams on central-regional relations, critical sectors, elite management, political families, and patronage and brokerage. Text as Data develops and applies Research Streams in named-entity recognition, frame analysis, sentiment analysis, and semantic networks to recover political meaning from large text collections.

The lab is data-driven and builds two complementary kinds of research infrastructure. Nets & Orgs databases measure the actors, ties, institutions, and events through which power is acquired and exercised; Text & Media databases preserve large collections of documents from which researchers can extract new measures for many substantive questions.

Our publication pipeline connects Analytic Approaches to Research Streams, databases, and scholarly outputs. We develop concepts and measures, construct and audit reusable data, analyze that evidence, circulate working papers and preprints, and publish completed findings while preserving transparent links among the underlying research materials.

Collaboration is central to this work. We partner with researchers, students, and institutions across both Analytic Approaches, bringing together substantive expertise, language knowledge, archival research, data science, and methodological development from project design through publication and the creation of shared resources.

Lab History & Organization

The idea for the Organization of Power Lab grew out of three influences during my graduate studies at Stanford University: Woody Powell's Networks and Organizations Workshop; the Stanford Network Forum, which I co-organized with Jessica Santana; and my first collaboration with Esther Song to construct the North Korea Elites Database.

I built the first version of the lab at KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, from 2022 to 2023. At that stage, our work centered on developing the North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan Politics databases. I continued developing the lab after moving to National Chengchi University in Taipei in fall 2023. Since then, we have clarified the lab's Research Streams, established new collaborations, and built a robust publication pipeline. We expanded our databases to cover Kazakhstan and Chinese Communist Party politics, North Korean and Kazakh media, and the Epstein Files. We also moved our online research infrastructure from Excel files stored in Google Drive to a PostgreSQL database with web-based interfaces for data collection and management. These expansions were all realized by the talented team of Research Assistants I was able to hire thanks to generous grants from Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).

Research Assistants are the lifeblood of the lab. Most are National Chengchi University students, though we continue to work with faculty, students, and former lab members from KIMEP University. I have been fortunate to recruit students from across BA, MA, and PhD programs and fields ranging from computer science, economics, and mathematics to diplomacy, Asia-Pacific studies, and Korean language and culture. Research Assistants bring exceptional data-science skills and/or high proficiency in a language central to our research, including Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Kazakh. They are instrumental in data collection, data management, and data wrangling. Experienced RAs also work further down the publication pipeline conducting analysis, reviewing literature, and preparing articles for publication. Over the last three years, four of our Research Assistants have won NSTC grants for undergraduate research. Many have also participated in academic conferences including the Taiwan Political Science Association (2024 and 2025), the Korean Sociological Association (2024 and 2026), and the International Political Science Association (2025). Our lab is now preparing to host two panels at the XXI ISA World Congress of Sociology in Gwangju, Korea, in July 2027.

Our lab actively collaborates with scholars in diverse disciplines around the world. Our current collaborations span East and Central Asia, the United States, and Europe, and range from sharing data and training to coauthoring research articles. Networks & Organizations collaborators share our interest in political organization in East and Central Asia. Text as Data collaborators use our media data and text-analysis training to develop research across diverse disciplines, including law, linguistics, social welfare, tourism, sociology, political science, and international relations.

Contact Us

For additional inquiries, contact Dr. Jacob Reidhead.