Dr. Leon Kunz is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Taiwan Studies and the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on social movements, democratization, and performative politics with a regional specialization on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. He received his B.A. from Free University of Berlin (2013), an M.A. from Humboldt University of Berlin (2016), as well as an M.Sc. (2014) and a Ph.D. from SOAS University of London (2021). His Ph.D. dissertation explored how participants in Taiwan’s Sunflower and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movements conceived and practiced democracy in order to reflect on broader questions of strategy, prefiguration, and deliberation. His wider research interests include comparative political theory, the politics of memory, queer politics, and East Asian international relations.