Dorothy J. Solinger

Picture of Dorothy J. Solinger
Professor, Political Science
School of Social Sciences
PH.D., Stanford University, 1975
Phone: (949)854-2872, 824-7521, 5439, 5361
Fax: (949) 824-8762
Email: dorjsoli@uci.edu
University of California, Irvine
2269 Social Sciences Plaza B
Mail Code: 5100
Irvine, CA 92697
Research Interests
Chinese Domestic Politics and Political Economy, Comparative Politics, East Asian Politics
Academic Distinctions
Dorothy Solinger has been a Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Visiting Research Associate at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan; National Fellow at the Hoover Institution; Director of Regional Seminars on Modern China at the University of Pittsburgh (funded by the Joint Committee on Contemporary China of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council); received grants from the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China (funded by the National Science Academy) and the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (administed by the American Council of Learned Societies), and the Smith Richardson Foundation; was a Fellow at the The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics; and the winner of the 2001 Joseph R. Levenson prize of the Association for Asian Studies for the best book on 20th century China published in 1999 for CONTESTING CITIZENSHIP IN URBAN CHINA (University of California Press). Her book, STATES' GAINS, LABOR'S LOSSES (Cornell University Press, 2009) was named a CHOICE magazine "Outstanding Academic Title." She has done consulting work for the World Bank, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, and the Public Broadcasting System, and was a member of the Editorial Board of the University of California Press. She also served as Chairman of the China and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies in 1987-89 and again in 2013-14, and served as Co-Director for the UC Irvine Center for Asian Studies from 2004-006. From 1992 to 2008, she was Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia Unviersity. She taught at the University of Michigan (1985-86) and at Stanford University (1989-1990), both times as Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science, by invitation. In June, 2001 she was a Visiting lecturer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, PariIn June, 2010 she was a Visiting scholar, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, School of Geography and Planning, Zhongshan University, Guangzhou, China. In Autumn 2008, she was a Visiting Research Professor, East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore; and in Autumn 2014, she was Distinguished Visiting Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong in Government and Public Administration and Chinese Studies. She has been an invited speaker at conferences or at universities in 20 countries.
Research Abstract
Professor Solinger's field of specialization is Chinese domestic politics, particularly political sociology. She has focused on political decisionmaking and social and political reactions to policy about economic and social matters. In her early research, she wrote on regional policy and regionalism in China; the treatment of minority nationalites; the politics of socialist commerce, the treatment of the private sector under socialism in China, and the politics of economic reform. She has also published two major comparative studies, one on industrial policy in China, with comparative reference to similar policy in Japan and France, and the other on states' global involvement, workers' unemployment, protest and welfare in China, France and Mexico. Another project concerned the management of the transient peasant population in China. In recent years her work has been on laid-off workers, urban poverty policy and the urban poor, and welfare reform. She has also published on transitions from one-party rule in Taiwan, Korea and Mexico and has written several pieces on projections about the democratization of China. She has published nearly 100 articles and book chapters.
Professor Solinger taught courses on Chinese politics, introduction to comparative politics, East Asian politics, regime change in East Asia, and theories of the state.
Publications
Editor, Special feature, “A New Look at Xi Jinping and his Regime,” China Perspectives , No. 2018/1-2, 2018.
Editor, Polarized Cities: Portraits of Rich and Poor in Urban China. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019.
Poverty and Pacification: The Chinese State Abandons the Old Working Class. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.
Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged: Eastern Europe and China, 1989-2009. Oxford University Press, 2012. Co-editor with Nina Bandelj.
States' Gains, Labor's Losses: China, France and Mexico Choose Global Liaisons, 1980-2000. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. Selected as Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title.
Contesting Citizenship in Urban China: Peasant Migrants, the State, and the Logic of Market. University of California Press, 1999. Winner of Association for Asian Studies Joseph R. Levenson Prize in 2001 for the best book on 20th-century China published in 1999.
Narratives of the Chinese Economic Reforms. Editor. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
States and Sovereignty in the Global Economy. London: Routledge, 1999. Co-editor with David A. Smith and Steven C. Topik.
China's Transition from Socialism: Statist Legacies and Market Reforms. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1993.
From Lathes to Looms: China's Industrial Policy in Comparative Perspective. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
Chinese Business Under Socialism: The Politics of Domestic Commerce. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984 (pb, 1987).
Three Visions of Chinese Socialism. Editor. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984.
Regional Government and Political Integration in Southwest China, 1949-1954. Berkeley: University of California, 1977.
Grants
Chiang Ching-kuo of the American Council of Learned Societies; National Fellowship, Hoover Institution; Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Smith Richardson Foundation; Committee on Scholarly Cooperation with the People's Republic of China of the National Academy of Science and the Social Science Research Council; Research Fellowship, Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley; Research Fellowship, Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan
Professional Societies
American Pol. Sci. Assn.;Assn.for Asian Studies
Other Experience
Adjunct Senior Research Scholar,
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University 1992—2008
Last updated
09/19/2023