Welcome! I'm an Associate Professor at The University of Melbourne's Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies. I also serve as Deputy Associate Dean International (China) in the Faculty of Arts. Before coming to Melbourne, I worked at the Sociology Department at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). I served as the inaugural Director of the Centre for Social Innovation Studies at CUHK and was affiliated as a research fellow with the School of Philanthropy at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. I previously served as a consulting editor for The American Journal of Sociology and am a frequent reviewer for other publications.
My research on China encompasses political sociology, civil society, globalisation, organisational development, and philanthropy. I study Chinese and outside organisations working on environmental issues, labor rights, HIV-AIDS, education, and other concerns that have arisen in the context of rapid urbanisation and fundamental policy changes since the early 1980s. Most recently, I have conducted interviews and numerous focus groups with 50+ grassroots NGOs and dozens of international NGOs about China's recently introduced Charity Law and its new INGO Law. My new book, co-edited with Akihiro Ogawa, is called Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Asia and includes contributions from a range of junior and senior experts on civil society in Asia as well as my own chapter on China's INGO Law.
My latest article (with Ken Setiawan), "Global Concepts, Local Meanings: How Civil Society Interprets and Uses Human Rights in Asia," kicks off a special issue of the Asian Studies Review on human rights and civil society in Asia that I co-edited with Ken. Another recent article (with Weijun Lai), "Marketization and Its Discontents: Unveiling the Impacts of Foundation-led Venture Philanthropy on Grassroots NGOs in China," is available on The China Quarterly website now. My work on China's Charity Law was published in 2020 as "Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society," in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ). Other recent articles include "Advocacy in an Authoritarian State: How Grassroots Environmental NGOs Influence Local Governments in China" (published in The China Journal and co-authored with my former student, Jingyun Dai) and "Chinese Youth and Alternative Narratives of Volunteering" in China Information. My research into foreign influences on Chinese civil society, Chinese grassroots NGOs, Chinese philanthropy, and relations between NGOs and the Chinese state has appeared in The China Quarterly, The China Journal, The American Journal of Sociology, and The Journal of Civil Society and is available on my Publications page.
I received my undergraduate degree in Asian Studies at Occidental College, and during my studies there I spent a year at Nanjing University and Beijing University as an exchange student. After working in Taiwan in the 1990s, I returned to the US to study at Yale University, where I obtained an MA degree in East Asian Studies and an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Sociology. During the early ‘00s, I spent three years with the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, where I co-founded and worked as Assistant Editor of YaleGlobal Online.
-- Anthony J. Spires
My research on China encompasses political sociology, civil society, globalisation, organisational development, and philanthropy. I study Chinese and outside organisations working on environmental issues, labor rights, HIV-AIDS, education, and other concerns that have arisen in the context of rapid urbanisation and fundamental policy changes since the early 1980s. Most recently, I have conducted interviews and numerous focus groups with 50+ grassroots NGOs and dozens of international NGOs about China's recently introduced Charity Law and its new INGO Law. My new book, co-edited with Akihiro Ogawa, is called Authoritarianism and Civil Society in Asia and includes contributions from a range of junior and senior experts on civil society in Asia as well as my own chapter on China's INGO Law.
My latest article (with Ken Setiawan), "Global Concepts, Local Meanings: How Civil Society Interprets and Uses Human Rights in Asia," kicks off a special issue of the Asian Studies Review on human rights and civil society in Asia that I co-edited with Ken. Another recent article (with Weijun Lai), "Marketization and Its Discontents: Unveiling the Impacts of Foundation-led Venture Philanthropy on Grassroots NGOs in China," is available on The China Quarterly website now. My work on China's Charity Law was published in 2020 as "Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society," in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ). Other recent articles include "Advocacy in an Authoritarian State: How Grassroots Environmental NGOs Influence Local Governments in China" (published in The China Journal and co-authored with my former student, Jingyun Dai) and "Chinese Youth and Alternative Narratives of Volunteering" in China Information. My research into foreign influences on Chinese civil society, Chinese grassroots NGOs, Chinese philanthropy, and relations between NGOs and the Chinese state has appeared in The China Quarterly, The China Journal, The American Journal of Sociology, and The Journal of Civil Society and is available on my Publications page.
I received my undergraduate degree in Asian Studies at Occidental College, and during my studies there I spent a year at Nanjing University and Beijing University as an exchange student. After working in Taiwan in the 1990s, I returned to the US to study at Yale University, where I obtained an MA degree in East Asian Studies and an MA, MPhil, and PhD in Sociology. During the early ‘00s, I spent three years with the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, where I co-founded and worked as Assistant Editor of YaleGlobal Online.
-- Anthony J. Spires
Photos of Central Australia and the Generalife Gardens of Alhambra (c) 2015 Anthony J. Spires