Mark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Policy and Governance at the Crawford School of Public Policy. He joined the ANU in early 2024 from the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, where he had been an Associate Professor of Politics and former Deputy Head of the National School of Arts, overseeing the School of Arts in Victoria. Prior to ACU, Mark was a McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne from 2011 to 2013. Trained as a political scientist and lawyer, Mark holds degrees from the Australian National University and the University of Queensland, which awarded him his PhD in 2010. He is a former Vice President of the Australian Political Studies Association.

Mark's main research interests includes democratic theory and governance, local politics and government, and comparative political theory. His books include How Local Governments Govern Culture War Conflicts (Cambridge UP, 2020); Political Meritocracy and Populism (Routledge, 2019); Young People, Citizenship, and Political Participation (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); Democracy Against Itself (Edinburgh UP, 2014); and Theorising Democide (Palgrave, 2013). In addition to this, he has authored numerous articles in leading journals, including Urban Affairs Review, Democratization, Swiss Political Science Review, PS: Political Science and Politics, Australian Journal of Political Science, and Australian Journal of Public Administration.

Together with Benjamin Moffitt, Annika Werner, Rachel Busbridge, and Simon Tormey, Mark is currently working on an Australian Research Council funded Discovery project, Populism's Heartlands: Place, Identity, and Localism in Populist Politics ($312,265 AUD).

He is co-editor of the Palgrave/Springer Theories, Concepts and Practices of Democracy Book Series. 

Research publications

Books
Chou, Mark and Rachel Busbridge, How Local Governments Govern Culture War Conflicts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Chou, Mark, Benjamin Moffitt, and Octavia Bryant, Political Meritocracy and Populism: Cure or Curse? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2019)

Chou, Mark, Jean-Paul Gagnon, Catherine Hartung, and Lesley Pruitt, Young People, Citizenship and Political Participation: Combatting Civic Deficit? (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017)

Chou, Mark, Democracy Against Itself: Sustaining an Unsustainable Idea (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014)

Chou, Mark, Theorising Democide: Why and How Democracies Fail (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Chou, Mark, Greek Tragedy and Contemporary Democracy (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012)