Jan Robert R Go, PhD
Associate Professor of Political Science
Graduate Program Coordinator
jrgo1@up.edu.ph
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Jan Robert R Go is an Associate Professor of Political Science and currently the Graduate Program Coordinator at the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman.
Dr Go served as President of the Philippine Political Science Association (PPSA) from June 2023 to June 2025. Prior to this, he was the Managing Editor of the Philippine Political Science Journal (PPSJ)—the PPSA’s Web of Science and Scopus-indexed journal—from 2014 to 2023. Since 2022, he has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Association for Chinese Studies (PACS). He also held the position of Associate Dean for Research, Extension, and Publications at the University of the Philippines College of Social Sciences and Philosophy from August 2022 to August 2024. In 2025, he began serving as Associate Editor for Book Reviews of Asian Politics and Policy, a Scopus-indexed journal.
He earned his Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) from the University of the Philippines Manila and his Master of Arts (Political Science) from UP Diliman. His master’s research examined the politics of education decentralisation in a Philippine municipality. In 2017, he attended the Chinese Language Summer School at Peking University in Beijing, China. He received his doctoral degree in Political Theory from Central China Normal University in Wuhan in 2022. His first book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2026 is based on his doctoral dissertation on the politics of participation in urban communities in Quezon City, Philippines and Wuhan, China, during pandemic-related lockdowns.
In 2025, Dr Go was a Visiting Researcher at the Centre for Asian Studies (CÉTASE) and the Department of Political Science at the Université de Montréal, Canada. He also participated in the 2023 Visiting Program for Young Sinologists, organised by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and China’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. In 2021, he was selected as a fellow of the American Political Science Association (APSA) Asia Workshop, which focused on local politics and governance in East and Southeast Asia. He has been awarded the UP Diliman Centennial Professorial Chair in 2023 and 2024, and the One UP Faculty Grant in Political Science (Local Politics) for Outstanding Research and Public Service for the 2019–2021 period.
Associate Professor Go teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses in Philippine politics, political theory, and political methodology. His research interests include local politics and decentralisation, grassroots politics in urban and rural contexts, the construction of political power, participation theory, and Chinese domestic politics.
Before joining the University as a full-time faculty member in 2014, Dr Go worked at the Emergency and Humanitarian Action unit of the World Health Organisation Regional Office for the Western Pacific. He was also a lecturer at the Department of Social Sciences of St Scholastica’s College in Manila.
Education
- Doctor of Philosophy in Political Theory, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China, 2022
- Master of Arts (Political Science), University of the Philippines, Diliman, 2013.
- Bachelor of Arts (Political Science), University of the Philippines, Manila, 2009.
Research Interests
Local and grassroots politics; construction of power; the politics of participation; Asian and Philippine political theory; Chinese domestic politics
Recent Publications
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2026. Pandemic Stories: Understanding Community Participation and Politics in Urban Grassroots during the COVID-19 Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-981-95-2651-2
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2025. ‘The Rise of Uncontested Races: Understanding the Dynamics of the 2025 Midterm Local Elections.’ Contemporary Southeast Asia 47 (2): 182-187. DOI:10.1355/cs47-2a
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2024. ‘By whom and for whom: Studying Philippine politics and political science in the Philippines’. In More Political Than We Admit: Theories and the Problematic of Philippine Politics, edited by Julio C Teehankee, 5-26. Quezon City: Vibal.
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2024. ‘The Changing Local Political Dynamics during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Philippine Experience under Duterte (and Marcos Jr)’. In Games, Changes, and Fears : the Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr, edited by Aries A Arugay and Jean Encinas-Franco, 229-254. Singapore: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2023. ‘Decentralisation experiences in the Philippines: Social services sectors and the Local Government Code of 1991’. In A Better Metro Manila?: Towards Responsible Local Governance, Decentralization and Equitable Development, edited by Teresa S Encarnacion Tadem and Maria Ela L Atienza, 157-192. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Atienza, Maria Ela L. and Jan Robert R. Go. 2023. Assessing Local Governance and Autonomy in the Philippines: Three Decades of the 1991 Local Government Code. Discussion Paper Series 2023-05. Quezon City: UP Centre for Integrative and Development Studies.
- Athiqah Nur Alami, Dien Nguyen An Luong, Ella Prihatini, Eryan Ramadhani, Jan Robert R Go, Noorul Hafidzah, Ummu Atiyah. 2022. “Democratization in the Digital Era: Experience from Southeast Asia.” Journal of ASEAN Studies 10(2): 227-246. DOI: 10.21512/jas.v10i2.9361
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2021. ‘Political Science Research and Methodology in Contemporary Philippines: An Analysis of the Philippine Political Science Journal, 2000-2019’. Asian Journal of Political Science 29(2): 238-254. DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2021.1906289
- Go, Jan Robert R. 2018. ‘Claro M. Recto’. In Twentieth Century Philippine Political Thinkers: Selected Readings’, edited by Jorge V Tigno. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 406-412.
Courses Taught
- POLSC 101: Introduction to Philippine Politics
- POLSC 111: Qualitative Research Methods in Political Science
- POLSC 120: Introduction to Political Theory
- POLSC 125: Asian Political Thought
- POLSC 126: Philippine Political Thought
- POLSC 137: Special Topics in Comparative Politics (China)
- POLSC 199: Research Design in Political Science
- POLSC 201: Analysis of Philippine Politics
- POLSC 210: Advanced Political Analysis
- POLSC 220: Issues in Political Theory
- Soc Sci 2: Social, Economic, and Political Thought