Welcome! My name is Kevin (Tse-Luen) Wu, and I am a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Rochester.
I am a political scientist working in comparative politics and American politics, with a focus on how electoral institutions and party organizations shape political behavior in democratic systems. My research examines how political parties and individual politicians respond strategically to institutional rules, with particular attention to representation, legislative behavior, and party strategy.
My comparative politics research focuses primarily on Taiwan and East Asia to examine party strategies, political representation, and the long-term effects of historical and institutional arrangements. Using observational data, I study how institutional reforms such as electoral rules and gender quotas reshape candidate selection, voting behavior, and patterns of representation over time, with broader implications for theories of institutional change and democratic politics.
My American politics research consists of two lines of inquiry. One examines how financial contributions to party organizations shape access to institutional power in the U.S. House of Representatives, including committee assignments and leadership positions, and how these processes vary across parties. The other focuses on how economic incentives and lobbying activity influence legislative coalition formation and voting behavior in a polarized Congress, highlighting legislators’ forward-looking responses to anticipated distributive benefits.
Across these projects, I employ causal inference methods to identify institutional effects and to uncover the mechanisms through which political institutions influence party and individual behavior.
Before coming to Rochester, I received my M.A. and B.A. degrees in political science from National Taiwan University.