Since the beginning of China’s economic reforms, hundreds of millions of migrant laborers have left the countryside in search for greater economic opportunities in the cities. In this discussion, I explore how the migration experience has shaped individual political attitudes in contemporary China, as well as some of the implications for social and political stability in the future.
This program took place on Thursday, January 14, 2016
About the Speaker
Kent Freeze earned his PhD at Duke University. His dissertation, developed from field research experience in rural China, explored the intersection between the politics of inequality and behavior: Why do citizens have the preferences they do over government redistribution and how do governments respond to those preferences? He is also active in other research projects involving measuring the nature of citizen-elite democratic linkages, and the calculation of empirical measures of vertical and horizontal redistribution using the detailed income survey data of the Luxembourg Income Study. Professor Freeze has taught at Wesleyan University, Wake Forest and Duke University. He supervised DukeEngage in Beijing, an undergraduate service abroad program that placed undergrads at a school for the children of migrant workers on the outskirts of Beijing. Professor Freeze is fluent in Mandarin. He teaches seminars on inequality, political economy of China and Chinese politics, as well as methods of political research.