Diqing Lou
- Email Address: dilou@rider.edu
- Phone: (609)896-5275
- Fax: (609)896-5221
- Mailing Address: 2083 Lawrenceville Road, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648
Education
| 2001 - 2008: Ph.D. in Political Science | Texas A&M University—College Station, Texas |
| Dissertation: Political Participation and Transformation in Urban China, 1993 – 2002 | |
| Committee: Jon Bond (Chair), Tianjian Shi (Duke University), Alex Pacek, Matthew Hoddie, Harland Prechel (Sociology) | |
| Major Field: Comparative Politics (with a focus on East Asia) Minor Field: American Politics Other Fields: Political Methodology; Social Organizations | |
| 1997-2001: B.A. of International Studies (graduate with distinction) |
Foreign Affairs College, Beijing |
Additional Training
- 2007 Fall Graduate Teaching Academy, Texas A&M University Center for Teaching Excellence
- 2007 July Workshop on Mass Survey Research in China, Texas A&M University
- 2007 June Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models, Washington University in St. Louis
- 2005 June Texas A&M University Workshop on Grant Writing
- 2005 May Certified Researcher, Texas A&M University Institutional Review Board
Publications
- Lou, Diqing. 2007. “Political Institutions in a Comparative Perspective.” In Shiping Hua (eds.) Major Issues in Contemporary Political Science. Beijing: People’s University Press (In press).
- Lou, Diqing. “Declining Participation in Modernization: Paradox of China's Urban Participation.” Chinese Journal of Political Science (Forthcoming).
- Lou, Diqing. “From Vice to Virtue: Changing Portrayals of Minorities in China’s Official Media.” Asian Ethnicity (Forthcoming, with Matthew Hoddie).
Manuscripts under Review
- “The Status and Development of Municipal Congress in Urban China.” (with Jon Bond)
- “Civil Liberty and Political Freedom in China.” (With Tianjian Shi)
Manuscripts in Preparation
- Lou, Diqing. “Political Institution versus Political Efficacy: China’s Urban Political Participation in 2002.” (with Tianjian Shi)
- Lou, Diqing. “Comparative Political Behavior and Political Culture: Cases of the US and Japan.” (with Nehemia Geva)
- Lou, Diqing. “The Work Units Reform & Transformation of State-Society Relations in Urban China.”
- Lou, Diqing. “Marching toward a Harmonious Society: Happiness and Local Government Performance in Urban China.”
Conferences Papers
- Lou, Diqing and Jon R. Bond. “The Status and Development of Municipal Congress in Urban China.” Presented at the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Boston MA, August 2008
- Lou, Diqing and Jon R. Bond. “The Status and Development of Municipal Congress in Urban China.” Presented at the International Conference on "Greater China" in an Era of Globalization, Hong Kong, July 2008
- Lou, Diqing. “Declining Participation in Modernization: Paradox of China's Urban Participation.” Presented at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago IL April 2008
- Lou, Diqing. “Work Unit Reform & Transformation of State-Society Relations in Urban China.” Presented at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago IL April 2008
- Lou, Diqing. “Development of Civil Liberty and Political Freedom in China..” Presented at the 65thAnnual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago IL April 2007
- Lou, Diqing. “China’s Civil Liberty and Political Freedom.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern Social Science Association, Albuquerque NM, March 2007
- Lou, Diqing. “Social Context & China’s Urban Political Participation, 1993 – 2001.” Presented at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago IL April 2006
- Lou, Diqing. “Resources versus Context: the Mobilization of China’s Political Participation.” Presented at the 19th Annual Meeting of the Association of Chinese Political Studies, Louisville KY, March 2006
- Lou, Diqing. “Social Context & China’s Urban Political Participation.” Presented at the Graduate Student Workshop on Empirical Social Science Research on China. College Station TX, January 2006
- Lou, Diqing. “Work Units & China’s Urban Political Participation.” Presented at the International Symposium on China's Transition and Ascension & the 18th Annual Meeting of the Association of Chinese Political Studies, San Francisco CA, July 2005
- Lou, Diqing and Matthew Hoddie. “Changing Portrayals of Ethnic Minorities in China’s Official Media.” Presented at the 63rdAnnual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago IL, April 2005
- Lou, Diqing and Matthew Hoddie. “Changing Portrayal of Ethnic Minorities in China’s Official Media.” Presented at the First Annual Graduate Seminar on China, hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Universities Service Center for China Studies and the South China Program, HKIAPS, Hong Kong, January 2005
Research Interests
Comparative Politics; Political Participation; Political Institutions; East Asian Politics; Political Methodology; Social Organizations
Teaching Interests
Comparative Politics; Political Participation; Asian Politics; Comparative Political Institutions; American Political Institutions; Political Methodology; Social Organizations
Honors and Awards
- Fellow of Graduate Teaching Academy
- Academic Excellence Award of Texas A&M University ($8300), 2008
- International Education Grant ($500), 2007
- NSF Fellowship for participating the EITM program ($1500), 2007
- Dean’s Office’s Support of Travel Research Grant ($500), 2006
- Texas Higher Education Research Grant ($3000), 2006 – 2007
- Goodman Fellowship ($1500), awarded to outstanding international students, 2006
- Phi Sigma Alpha, the National Political Science Society, membership, 2001 –
- Teaching Assistantship, Texas A&M University, 2002 – 2003
- Outstanding Student, the highest student honor, Foreign Affairs College, 1997– 2001
Research Positions
Graduate Assistant:
Fall 2001– Spring 2003 with Professor Robert Harmel, Texas A&M University
Graduate Assistant:
Fall 2003 – Spring 2005 with Professor Matthew Hoddie, Texas A&M University
Teaching Experience
| 2008 Summer | Instructor of POLS 323-102 Introduction to Comparative Politics Solo responsibility for the course design, instruction and grading |
| 2008 Spring |
Instructor of POLS 365-201 (on the demand of students) |
| 2007 Fall | Instructor of POLS 365-201 Asian Government and Politics Solo responsibility for the course design, instruction and grading |
| 2007 Spring/Summer | Instructor of POLS 365-500 East Asian Government and Politics Solo responsibility for the course design, instruction and grading |
| 2006 Fall |
Guest speaker for Professor Matthew Hoddie’s class on Asian Governments and Politics |
| 2002 – 2003 | Teaching Assistant for Professor Robert Harmel’s class on Party Change
|
Service & Activities
| 2008 April | To serve as penal chair and discussant of the 66th Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association |
| 2007 December till 2008 January | Interviewing local officials at the municipal legislature in Wuhan, China, about the status and recent development of the local congress and collecting archival data at the local congress |
| 2006 - 2007 | Program Coordinator of International Program Office at Texas A&M University, responsible for designing and coordinating programs and activities to welcome new international students |
| 2006 Fall | Participant and volunteer of the China Survey Board Meeting, helping launch the China Survey Project, Texas A&M University |
| 2004 – 2006 | Representative of the Department of Political Science to the Graduate Student Council, Texas A&M University |
| 2005 June | Invited Participant of the Third Session of the U.S. Foreign Policy Colloquium, Washington D.C. |
| 2003 – 2004 | Vice-President of Chinese Students and Scholars Association at Texas A&M University |
| 2003 – 2004 | Program coordinator, helping coordinate academic meetings and activities to set up the China Archive at Texas A&M University |
| 1997 – 2001 | Elected President of the Class 2001, Foreign Affairs College |
Computing Skills
Statistical Courses: Survey Analysis, Political Analysis I, Political Analysis II, Political Analysis III, Econometrics III (with the Department of Economics), Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Game Theory, Methods of Statistics, Experimental Research Design
Statistical Software Proficiency: R, Stata, Limdep, SPSS, SAS, Mplus, Statistical Program Clarify, Statistical Program Amelia
Languages
Chinese: native speaker
English: fluent in reading, writing and speaking
German: studied two years in college; can read and speak somewhat
Professional Memberships
American Political Science Association
Association of Chinese Political Studies
Midwest Political Science Association
Dissertation Abstract
My dissertation examines citizens’ political participation in non-democratic countries. Specifically, it looks into China’s urban political participation in the past decade and examines how Chinese urban citizens are mobilized to participate in politics when an authoritarian regime has been experiencing dramatic economic change. The theoretic question of this dissertation is the evolvement of state-society relations during the economic development and how the change of the state-society relationship is reflected in individual behavior. Specifically, I am interested in whether and how economic development brings political liberalization to China and how it sequentially affects citizens’ political behavior and their engagement with the state. I found that while the social context such as the workplace served as fundamental grassroots institution to mobilize citizens’ political participation in the early 1990s, China’s urban political participation has shifted to lean more and more on individual resources.
Political participation of non-democratic regimes has been a unique and rapidly developing field in the studies of political behavior. Answering whether citizens participate in politics and how they do so in non-democratic regimes not only enlightens us on people’s behavior in the authoritarian regime, but it also provides important insights into the state-society relationship and the political configuration of non-democratic countries. Scholars studying citizens’ political participation in USSR and China have long noted that political participation in an authoritarian regime is mobilized and controlled by the state and that citizens are organized by the state to participate in politics to provide for regime legitimacy. In this thesis, I tested this paradigm within the context of China’s rapid economic development.
The data I employ are the 1993 China’s Social Mobility and Social Change Survey and the 2002 Asian Survey. Both data sets contain highly congruent batteries of behavioral and attitudinal questions that offer the basis of comparison across time. The data sets were collected across China in 1993 and 2002 respectively representing the population of adult residents (excluding Tibet).
The comparison of urban political participation in the past decade exhibited a general and measurable decline of citizens’ participation during the economic reform. I found Chinese citizens’ political participation has shifted largely from the pattern of “grassroots-state-mobilization” to “individual-voluntary-mobilization” during its economic reforms. I argue that this is largely resulted from the change of state-society relations as individual citizens are granted with more autonomy and less dependent on the state for economic sources.
