Andrew Walder

Andrew Walder is the Denise O'Leary and Kent Thiry Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford, where he is also a Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI). He is currently the Director of the Division of International, Comparative and Area Studies in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences, and in past years has served as Chair of Stanford’s Department of Sociology and Director of FSI’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. 

A political sociologist, Walder has long specialized on the sources of conflict, stability and change in communist regimes and their successor states. His current research focuses on changes in the ownership and control of large Chinese corporations and the parallel emergence of a new corporate elite with varied ties to state agencies. He also continues his research interest in Mao-era China, with a focus on the mass politics of the Cultural Revolution of 1966-1969.

Walder joined the Stanford faculty the fall of 1997. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Michigan in 1981 and taught at Columbia University before moving to Harvard in 1987. As a Professor of Sociology, he served as Chair of Harvard’s M.A. Program on Regional Studies-East Asia for several years. From 1995 to 1997 he headed the Division of Social Sciences at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. From 1996 to 2006, as a member of the Hong Kong Government’s Research Grants Council, he chaired its Panel on the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Business Studies.

His recent publications include Fractured Crusade: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (Harvard University Press, 2009), The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History, edited with Joseph Esherick and Paul Pickowicz (Stanford University Press, 2006), “Ownership, Organization, and Income Inequality: Market Transition in Rural Vietnam” in the American Sociological Review (2008), “Ambiguity and Choice in Political Movements:  The Origins of Beijing Red Guard Factionalism,” in the American Journal of Sociology (2006), “From Control to Ownership: China’s Managerial Revolution,” in Management and Organizations Review (2009), and “Political Sociology and Social Movements,” in Annual Review of Sociology (2009).

Curriculum Vitæ

Email Andrew Walder


 

RESEARCH AREAS

Political Sociology; Stratification and Mobility; China Studies

OTHER APPOINTMENTS/ORGANIZATIONS

Director-Emeritus, Shorenstein APARC; FSI Senior Fellow

Director-Emeritus, Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and Senior Fellow at the Freeman and Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

 

PUBLICATIONS

Recent Books:

  • Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement (In preparation, expected completion 2007).
  • The Chinese Cultural Revolution as History. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006 (editor, with Joseph W. Esherick and Paul G. Pickowicz).
  • Property Rights and Economic Reform in China. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999 (editor, with Jean C. Oi).
  • Zouping in Transition: The Process of Reform in Rural North China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998 (editor).
  • China's Transitional Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 (editor).
  • The Waning of the Communist State: Economic Origins of Political Decline in China and Hungary. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995 (editor).

Recent Papers:

  • “Factional Conflict at Beijing University, 1966-1968.” The China Quarterly 188 (December 2006): 1023-1047.
  • “Ambiguity and Choice in Political Movements: The Origins of Beijing Red Guard Factionalism.” American Journal of Sociology 112: 3 (November 2006): 710-750.
  • “Political Office and Household Wealth: Rural China in the Deng Era.” The China Quarterly 186 (June 2006): 357-376 (first author, with Litao Zhao).
  • “Tan Lifu: A ‘Reactionary’ Red Guard in Historical Perspective.” The China Quarterly 180 (December 2004): 965-988.
  • “The Party Elite and China’s Trajectory of Change.” China: An International Journal 2 (September 2004): 189-209.  Reprinted in The Chinese Communist Party in Reform, edited by Kjeld Erik Brodsgaard and Zheng Yongnian. London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 15-32.
  • “Elite Opportunity in Transitional Economies.” American Sociological Review 68:6 (December 2003): 899-916.
  • “The Cultural Revolution in the Countryside: Scope, Timing, and Human Impact.” The China Quarterly 173 (March 2003): 82-107 (first author, with Yang Su).
  • “清理階級隊伍：文化革命的内幕,” (Cleansing the Class Ranks: The Hidden Face of the Cultural Revolution.” 社會科學 (Hong Kong Journal of Social Science) 24 (Winter 2003): 1-26.
  • “Income Determination and Market Opportunity in Rural China, 1978-1996.” Journal of Comparative Economics 30:2 (June 2002): 1-22.
  • "Career Advancement as Party Patronage: Sponsored Mobility into the Chinese Administrative Elite." (co-authored with Bobai Li) American Journal of Sociology, 2001.
  • "Politics and Life Chances in a State Socialist Regime: Dual Career Paths into the Urban Chinese Elite, 1949 to 1996." (co-authored with Bobai Li) American Sociological Review, 2000
  • "Property Rights and Economic Reform in China." (co-edited with Jean Oi) 1999
  • "Zouping in Transition: The Process of Reform in Rural North China." 1998


Back to top