Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies

Contemporary Chinese Politics: Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies considers how new and diverse sources and methods are changing the study of Chinese politics. Contributors spanning three generations in China studies place their distinct qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches in the framework of the discipline and point to challenges or opportunities (or both) of adapting new sources and methods to the study of contemporary China. How can we more effectively use new sources and methods of data collection? How can we better integrate the study of Chinese politics into the discipline of political science, to the betterment of both? How can we more appropriately manage the logistical and ethical problems of doing political research in the challenging Chinese environment? In addressing these questions, this comprehensive methodological survey will be of immense interest to graduate students heading into the field for the first time and experienced scholars looking to keep abreast of the state of the art in the study of Chinese politics.

Allen Carlson is an Associate Professor in Cornell University's Government Department. He is the author of Unifying China, Integrating with the World: Securing Chinese Sovereignty during the Reform Era (2005) and the co-editor (with J. J. Suh and Peter Katzenstein) of Rethinking Security in East Asia: Power, Identity and Efficiencies (2004). His articles have appeared in the Journal of Contemporary China and Pacific Affairs.

Mary E. Gallagher is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Center for Chinese Studies. She is also a faculty associate at the Center for Comparative Political Studies at the Institute for Social Research. She is the author of Contagious Capitalism: Globalization and the Politics of Labor in China (2005) and her articles have appeared in World Politics, the Law and Society Review, Studies in Comparative International Development and Asian Survey.

Kenneth Lieberthal is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and in Global Economy and Development and also is Director of the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. He has written and edited fifteen books and monographs, most recently The US Intelligence Community and Foreign Policy: Getting Analysis Right (2009) and (with David Sandalow) Overcoming Obstacles to US-China Cooperation on Climate Change (2009). He is also the author of about seventy periodical articles and chapters in books, as well as having published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, the South China Morning Post and numerous other newspapers.

Melanie Manion is a Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her publications include Retirement of Revolutionaries in China (1993) and Corruption by Design (2004). Her articles have appeared in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization and China Quarterly.