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2005 Boston Seminars


March 4, Friday, 9:30-11:00 a.m. "civil societies"

(Rescheduled)
April 22, Friday, 9:30-11:00 a.m. "rural reconstruction movements & fiscal crisis"

May 13 Friday, 9:30-11:00 a.m. "Lang Xianping & the Reform of State-Owned Enterprises"

Meeting Place
E51-278, MIT


2nd International Workshop

“The Third Space of the ‘Commons’”

Beijing, China
July 28-31, 2005


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MIT-Harvard Critical Policy Studies of China

What is meant by Critical Policy Studies?

The bringing together of academics from two ‘fields’ of China Studies – cultural studies and policy studies – who appreciate that the other field may be of interest intellectually in tandem and are prepared to work together toward an experimental fusion of the two designated fields of knowledge despite differences in perspective and creative tensions in the process.

Mission Statement

  • To build a knowledge interface between those various disciplines in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, and professional schools from the shared angle of our mutual interest in developing an innovative policy studies not confined within the positivist frame of quantitative analysis.
  • To build up a knowledge interface between scholars and policy makers and analysts from the PRC. Through structured discussions, we hope to influence the perception of both groups (policy makers and scholars) on three sets of larger issues: (i) governance; (ii) China’s role in trans-boundary Asian development policies, and (iii) China’s possible contributions to international policy regimes.
  • To explore new critical paradigms in Chinese Studies through our exploration of the interface between policies studies and the studies of Chinese history, culture, society, politics, and economy. Critical policy studies defined in our scope has thus far been a missing link in Chinese studies.

Policy areas to investigate:

  1. poverty alleviation
  2. environment and energy
  3. technology media
  4. reform of state-owned enterprises

We encourage participants to bring the trajectories of gender and ethnic minorities into our discussion of each of the designated policy areas.

Overarching theme for 2005-2008: "Western Problem Consciousness and Chinese Problems" (西方问题意识与中国问题)

  • 2006-2007 annual theme: The Impact of the International Development Aid Organizations on Policy Making and Policy Discourses in the PRC

MIT
Comments and questions to chinacriticalpolicy-request(at)mit.edu. Updated on June 21, 2005.