# Xueguang Zhou

**Source**: https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou
**Parent**: https://beijing.stanford.edu/academics/meet-faculty

## Xueguang Zhou, PhD

- Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
- Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development
- Professor of Sociology
- Graduate Seminar Professor at the Stanford Center at Peking University, June and July of 2014
- Faculty Affiliate at the Stanford Center on China's Economy and Institutions

Shorenstein APARC\
Stanford University\
Encina Hall, E301\
Stanford, CA 94305-6055

[xgzhou@stanford.edu](mailto:xgzhou@stanford.edu)

(650) 725-6392 (voice)

(650) 723-6530 (fax)

[Download CV](https://fsi9-prod.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/zhou_cv2020_aparc.pdf)
[Stanford Profile](https://profiles.stanford.edu/xueguang-zhou)

[Publications](#recent_publications)
[Research](#current_research)
[In The News](#recent_news)

## Biography

Xueguang Zhou is the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a professor of sociology, and a Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies senior fellow. His main area of research is on institutional changes in contemporary Chinese society, focusing on Chinese organizations and management, social inequality, and state-society relationships.

One of Zhou's current research projects is a study of the rise of the bureaucratic state in China. He works with students and colleagues to conduct participatory observations of government behaviors in the areas of environmental regulation enforcement, in policy implementation, in bureaucratic bargaining, and in incentive designs. He also studies patterns of career mobility and personnel flow among different government offices to understand intra-organizational relationships in the Chinese bureaucracy.

Another ongoing project is an ethnographic study of rural governance in China. Zhou adopts a microscopic approach to understand how peasants, village cadres, and local governments encounter and search for solutions to emerging problems and challenges in their everyday lives, and how institutions are created, reinforced, altered, and recombined in response to these problems. Research topics are related to the making of markets, village elections, and local government behaviors.

His recent publications examine the role of bureaucracy in public goods provision in rural China (*Modern China*, 2011); interactions among peasants, markets, and capital (*China Quarterly*, 2011); access to financial resources in Chinese enterprises (*Chinese Sociological Review*, 2011, with Lulu Li); multiple logics in village elections (*Social Sciences in China,* 2010, with Ai Yun); and collusion among local governments in policy implementation (*Research in the Sociology of Organizations,* 2011, with Ai Yun and Lian Hong; and *Modern China*, 2010).

Before joining Stanford in 2006, Zhou taught at Cornell University, Duke University, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is a guest professor at Peking University, Tsinghua University, and the People's University of China. Zhou received his Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University in 1991.

## publications

Publication Type

- [Most Recent](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou)
- [Book Chapters](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_publication_type=book_chapter)
- [Books](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_publication_type=book)
- [Journal Articles](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_publication_type=journal_article)
- [Working Papers](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_publication_type=working_paper)

Books

September 2022

### The Logic of Governance in China

Author(s)

- [Xueguang Zhou](http://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou)

[The Logic of Governance in China](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/logic-governance-china)

Book Chapters

August 2022

### Bureaucrats, Local Elites, and Economic Development

Author(s)

- Ling Zhu,
- [Xueguang Zhou](http://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou)

[Bureaucrats, Local Elites, and Economic Development](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/bureaucrats-local-elites-and-economic-development)

Journal Articles

June 2021

### Chinese Bureaucracy Through Three Lenses: Weberian, Confucian, and Marchian

Author(s)

- [Xueguang Zhou](http://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou)

[Chinese Bureaucracy Through Three Lenses: Weberian, Confucian, and Marchian](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/publication/chinese-bureaucracy-through-three-lenses-weberian-confucian-and-marchian)

[More Publications](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/publications?author="Xueguang Zhou")
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## Current research

## The Institutional Foundations of the Chinese Bureaucratic State

[Learn more](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/research/institutional-foundations-of-the-chinese-bureaucratic-state)

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## In The News

News Type

- [All](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou)
- [News](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_news_type=news)
- [Q&As](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/people/xueguang_zhou?by_news_type=q_a)

News

## Stanford Sociologist Unveils How China Is Governed

In a new book, Stanford sociologist and APARC faculty Xueguang Zhou offers a unified theoretical framework to explain how China's centralized political system maintains governance and how this process produces obstacles to professionalism, bureaucratic rationalism, and the rule of law.

[Stanford Sociologist Unveils How China Is Governed](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/stanford-sociologist-unveils-how-china-governed)

News

## APARC Scholars Discuss the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in China

Karen Eggleston, Scott Rozelle, and Xueguang Zhou join the King Center on Global Development’s Hongbin Li to examine how COVID-19 has impacted urban and rural employment in China’s health care sectors.

[APARC Scholars Discuss the Economic Impact of COVID-19 in China](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/aparc-scholars-discuss-economic-impact-covid-19-china)

Q&As

## Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Fundamental Tension in Governing China, Says Stanford Sociologist and China Expert Xueguang Zhou

[Coronavirus Crisis Exposes Fundamental Tension in Governing China, Says Stanford Sociologist and China Expert Xueguang Zhou](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news/coronavirus-crisis-exposes-fundamental-tension-governing-china-says-stanford-sociologist-and)

[More News](https://aparc.fsi.stanford.edu/news?keyword="Xueguang Zhou")
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