Columbia China Center for Social Policy

Xueguang Zhou analyzes organizational responses to the COVID-19 crisis in a comparative perspective and discusses how this episode sheds light on the key characteristics of governance in China, particularly the relationship between mobilization capacity and institutional adaptability. His talk draws on his longstanding research on China’s bureaucracy and his reflections published during the pandemic.

Speaker's Bio: Xueguang Zhou is a professor of sociology, the Kwoh-Ting Li Professor in Economic Development, a senior fellow at Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University. His book The Logic of Governance in China: An Organizational Approach (Cambridge University Press, 2022) summarizes his decade-long research on the governance practice in contemporary China. His current research examines patterns of personnel flow in the Chinese bureaucracy and the historical evolution of the Chinese state.

This event is part of the 2025-2026 lecture series "COVID-19 Governance and Impacts: China from Comparative Perspectives." The series will be part of the China COVID Project, a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary research initiative funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. It aims to spotlight new empirical and theoretical research that interrogates China’s post-COVID standing through social, economic, political, and gender-based lenses. It features scholars working on governance, public health, digital statecraft, labor, gender, and civil society responses in China and Asia. The series will foster public dialogue and contribute to documentation and analysis of the pandemic’s legacy.

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and cosponsored by the Columbia China Center for Social Policy.