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Project managers

Björn Alpermann

PhD, professor of contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Würzburg.

He is the coordinator of the “Governance in China” research network (2010–2016), which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and head of the “Social Stratification and Political Culture in Contemporary Urban China” project. He studied modern Chinese studies, political science and economics at the University of Cologne and Nankai University, Tianjin (PRC), graduating in 1999 with an MA in Chinese area studies. From 1999 until 2008 he worked as a research assistant in modern Chinese history/politics, economy and society at the East Asian Institute of the University of Cologne. 2008-2013 assistant professor of contemporary Chinese studies at the University of Würzburg. He has undertaken regular research trips to China. 

 

 

Prof. Dr. Thomas Heberer

Thomas Heberer is professor of Politics of East Asia at the Political Science Department and the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) at the University Duisburg-Essen since 1998. Since the middle of the 1960s he has been working on China which he visited first in 1975. From 1977 to 1981 he worked as editor and translator at the Foreign Language Press in Beijing. From 1981 he has regularly conducted field research in different parts of China. Over the past years, he engaged among other things in the social and political roles of private entrepreneurs, the role of ideas and intellectuals in political processes, the role of ethnical entrepreneurs for local development and ethnicity, institutional and social change in Chinese cities and the role of local cadres (“strategic groups”) in the rural transformation process. Further information on: www.uni-due.de/oapol/

 

 

Prof. Dr. Heike Holbig

is a professor of political science with a focus on Chinese and East Asian area studies at Frankfurt University, and an associate senior research fellow at the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Her research centers on political legitimation, ideology, and the political economy of contemporary China.

 

 

Research Team

Maria Bondes, M.A.

has been a member of the “Governance in China” research network’s research staff at the Institute of Asian Studies of the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg since April 2010.

She studied Chinese studies, political science and economics at the University of Hamburg and Lanzhou University (PRC), graduating in 2010 with an MA.

 

 

Sabrina Habich, PhD / National Chengchi University

Sabrina Habich is lecturer at the Asia-Orient Institute (Chair of Greater China Studies) at the University of Tübingen. She earned her Master’s degree (German ‚Magister‘) in Sinology, Business Administration, and Political Science in 2008 at the University of Würzburg. In October 2013, she completed her PhD at National Chengchi University in Taipei. In her dissertation she researched dam-induced resettlement along the Lancang River in Yunnan Province. Her current project focuses on the role of local cadres in the implementation of China’s water resources strategy.

 

 

 

Dr. Elena Meyer-Clement

Elena Meyer-Clement is a research assistant at the Asia-Orient Institute (Chair of Greater China Studies) at the University of Tübingen. She studied Sinology, Political Science and Philosophy at the Universities of Hamburg and Nanjing. Her Ph.D. thesis focuses on institutional developments in party-state control over the private film and music industries in China. The current research project deals with the strategies of county and township cadres regarding in situ urbanization in the PRC. 

 

 

 

Jennifer Knippers, M.A.

Jennifer Knippers is a research associate affiliated to the “Governance in China” network’s subproject at the University of Duisburg-Essen since January 2015. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in economics and politics of China from the Ruhr University Bochum, she relocated to the University of Duisburg-Essen to obtain a consecutive Master degree in East Asian Studies (China).

 

 

Katja Yang, M.A.

has been a member of the “Governance in China” research network’s research staff in the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Würzburg since April 2010.

She studied Chinese studies, philosophy and economics at the University of Würzburg, Peking University and the Beijing Language and Culture University (PRC), graduating in 2010 with an MA.

 

Manager of the research network's adminstrative office

Maximilian Dullo M.A.

is the manager of the “Governance in China” research network’s administrative office in the Department of Chinese Studies at the University of Würzburg since Mai 2015. He obtained a bachelor in economics at the Kiel-University and a master in China Studies at the Zhejiang University Hangzhou.