Carolyn L. Hsu

Check out my profile on ResearchGate or look at my CV.

I study citizen civic engagement in the People's Republic of China, including grassroots NGOs, activism, volunteerism and philanthropy I also research ways that the Chinese government is trying to morally engineer its citizens to be more civically engaged through propaganda, campaigns and points systems (often conflated in the West with the Chinese social credit system.) For example, I have a a chapter in the forthcoming Sage Handbook of Urbanization in China, titled, “Civil Society in Urban China: Citizen Organization, Mobilization, and Protest.”  

To learn about my research, I recommend that you check out Colgate Research article about my scholarship, titled, "The Surprising Ways Chinese Citizens Respond to National Problems."  You can also look at my article in China Information, which describes how Chinese citizens are still able to push back against the state, even under Xi Jinping’s authoritarianism. 

Currently, I am part of a research group that conducts the Civic Participation in China Survey. We have been tracking changes in the relationship between citizens and the state in China since 2018, including new forms of activism and mobilization. You can learn more about the survey and our research in  this article from the Journal of Contemporary East Asian Studies. You can also read our recent academic articles, published in the Journal of Asian Public Policy, Democratization, the Journal of Contemporary China, and the Journal of Current Chinese Affairs.

My previous research was on the rise of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China. You can learn a little bit about this research by checking out my paper for the China Policy Institute or my talk at the Brookings Institute. You can also read my  book: Social Entrepreneurship and Citizenship in China.