Studying Chinese Politics

The “Studying Chinese Politics” conference engages with a new generation of Chinese politics work that has great potential to contribute to political science methodology, beyond improving understanding of China. The aim of this conference is 1) to bring together scholars of comparative politics who study China to merge the individual “waves” of research within the China studies field and 2) to use those findings to promote deeper integration of China politics into the discipline of political science.

The Special Projects Fund grant will be used to support a December conference at Stanford, which will develop an agenda of key questions and methodologies to be further developed in a series of conferences that will rotate among five universities (Duke, Harvard, Michigan, MIT, and Stanford).

Using this December conference as proof of concept, Stanford will apply on behalf of the group for a multi-year grant to the Luce Foundation, which has already expressed interest in such a project.

“We were impressed by the number of people studying Chinese politics. It was apparent to many of us who attended that meeting that it was time we convened a separate event with leaders in the field.”
Jean Oi
Co-PI, William Haas Professor in Chinese Politics and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies