2021 APSA Chinese Politics In-Person Mini-Conference

Chinese Politics Mini-Conference
2021 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association

Organizers: Roselyn Hsueh (Temple University), Xian Huang (Rutgers University), Kyle Jaros (University of Notre Dame), John Kennedy (University of Kansas), Xiaoyu Pu (University of
Nevada), and Susan Whiting (University of Washington)

This proposed mini-conference brings together scholars at different ranks and across generations and types of colleges and universities studying Chinese politics from institutions in North America, Asia, and Europe. The twenty papers selected are theoretically innovative, empirically relevant, and methodologically diverse, and we have assembled five panels that bring different scholarly perspectives into dialogue and push broader debates forward. Our panelists examine several pressing issues in the field, including China’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic; local, national, and identity factors affecting protest and social mobilization; impacts of various political, institutional, and territorial factors on center-local interactions; local state-business relations and the use of law and other political economic management tools to maintain authoritarian rule; and China’s role and reactions to it in global security and economic relations.

The proposed conference follows five successful mini-conferences held at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association since 2016 (sponsored by Division 13). This mini-conference has been a resounding success, as measured by the average attendance of each panel and the number of institutions represented among the co-organizers. Over a hundred scholars attended the 2019 mini-conference and nearly a hundred joined virtually in 2020 when it moved online due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. Between 2016 and 2020, 29 organizers represented over 24 different institutions.

For the 2021 Chinese Politics Mini-Conference, we aim to build on this strong foundation and we anticipate a large audience and wide-ranging institutional participation. This year, we solicited proposals from a wide range of scholars and institutions, resulting in 127 submissions. Ultimately, we accepted 20 of the proposals based on their quality and fit. The papers use qualitative, quantitative, and experimental approaches, and the presenting authors include senior scholars, junior scholars, postdoctoral fellows and advanced graduate students, a majority of whom are first time participants of the conference. Many papers are co-authored, often by pairs of junior and senior scholars.

In addition to sharing innovative research, to continue fostering intellectual connections and a sense of community in our expanding field, the mini-conference will include a lunchtime breakout session to allow scholars to network and exchange ideas and a reception following the mini-conference. We anticipate the sponsoring universities for these community building activities to be the home institutions of this year’s organizers: University of Kansas, University of Nevada, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers University, Temple University, and University of Washington.