MASTERCLASS SERIES I VIRTUAL PROGRAMMING I DECEMBER 3rd 2024 I 8:00-9:00 p.m. EST 5:00-6:00 p.m. PDT
Contemporary China is a dynamic and rapidly changing society where politics, governance, and social issues are deeply intertwined. Under President Xi Jinping, China has moved toward greater political centralization, with a clear emphasis on the CCP’s leadership in all aspects of society. The evolving relationship between the state and society is shaped by policies like “common prosperity,” social credit systems, and urbanisation, which reflect the CCP’s efforts to maintain control while addressing social inequalities. Social unrest, including labour movements, environmental protests, and ethnic tensions, presents ongoing governance challenges. The rapid advancement of technology, particularly in surveillance, further complicates this landscape, offering new tools for state control but also raising ethical concerns. Understanding contemporary China requires grappling with the interplay between a powerful authoritarian state, an increasingly diverse society, and the governance strategies that seek to harmonise (and control) these forces.
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Speaker: Lynette Ong
About the Speaker
Lynette Ong is a Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto and serves as the Director of the China Governance Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Holding appointments in both the Department of Political Science and the Munk School, she is also a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. Ong is the author of several notable works, including Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press, 2022), The Street and the Ballot Box: Interactions Between Social Movements and Electoral Politics in Authoritarian Contexts (Cambridge University Press, Elements Series in Contentious Politics, 2022), and Prosper or Perish: Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China (Cornell University Press, 2012). Outsourcing Repression has garnered recognition from major academic associations, including the American Political Science Association, the American Sociological Association, the International Studies Association, and the Canadian Political Science Association. It has won the ASA’s Distinguished Contribution to Political Sociology Award, the CPSA Prize in Comparative Politics, and received Honorable Mention for APSA’s Gregory Luebbert Award in Comparative Politics. Ong is also a recipient of the University of Toronto Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Research Excellence Award.
Lynette Ong’s academic work has been published in Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Comparative Politics, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, China Quarterly, China Journal, and more. Their research has been featured in major media outlets such as The Economist, New York Times, New Yorker, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Globe & Mail. At the China Governance Lab, she leads teams of talented student researchers working on various projects related to social unrest in China, Canada-China relations, and other topics.