Van Tran
mai.van.tran@vub.be
​Twitter: @vmtran

Welcome! I am a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Digitalisation, Democracy and Innovation (CD2I) of the Brussels School of Governance, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. I hold a PhD in political science from Cornell University (2020). I have previously worked as a postdoc at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, University of Copenhagen.  My research focuses on contentious politics and digital cultures under authoritarianism in the contexts of Myanmar and Asia.
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My Ph.D. dissertation examines the resilience of public activism under repression, based on new qualitative evidence from Myanmar’s urban pro-democracy movement during 1988-2010. Using process tracing, my analysis highlights the agency of non-contentious bystanders, whose protection toward protesters ultimately influence movement durability.

At CD2I, I research transnational advocacy by pro-democracy activists in Asia toward Facebook, Twitter, and Telegram to tackle repression of dissident voices. I'm also a member of the Folke Bernadotte Academy's International Research Working Group on Myanmar. My policy recommendations have been disseminated to hundreds of development partners at Myanmar Digital Rights Forum, Facebook, the United Nations, European Union, Oxfam, etc.

My academic research and book review are published at ​International Affairs, Big Data & Society, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Asian Politics & Policy, ​and Asian Journal of Comparative Politics. Other public scholarship works on Burmese politics have appeared in an edited book by the Torino World Affairs Institute and more than 100 media outlets and research blogs, including The Washington Post, Brookings Institution, Al Jazeera, AP, New Mandala, etc.