Roselyn Hsueh, Ph.D.
rhsueh@temple.edu
Associate Professor
Temple University
About Me:
I am an Associate Professor (tenured) of Political Science at Temple University. I co-direct Temple's Certificate in Political Economy in the College of Liberal Arts. I have served as a Global Order Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania and member of the Georgetown Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. I am the recipient of a Fulbright Global Scholar Award (2020-2022) for multi-country research and international exchange. My research focuses on International and Comparative Political Economy of Development. I am completing my next book, under contract with Cambridge University Press, which investigates the mediating role of market governance in the relationship between global economic integration and development outcomes in China, India, and Russia. Ongoing projects study China’s foreign economic engagement and its political impact on the developing world; and the political economy of identity in the global era.
My first book, China’s Regulatory State: A New Strategy for Globalization (Cornell University Press/Cornell Studies in Political Economy, 2011) examines the politics of market reform and evolving government-business relations across industries in post-Mao China. Numerous academic and policy journals have reviewed the book.
Scholarly journals, such as Comparative Political Studies and Governance, have also published my research. The Economist, Foreign Affairs, National Public Radio, and The Washington Post, among other media outlets, have featured my work; and I have testified in Congress in front of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
I have conducted in-depth fieldwork in Asia (including China, Japan, India, and Taiwan), Mexico, and Russia. I lectured as a Visiting Professor at Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and served as Residential Research Faculty Fellow, Institute of East Asian Studies and Visiting Scholar, Center for the Study of Law & Society at U.C. Berkeley. I served as a Hayward R. Alker Post-Doctoral Fellow, University of Southern California; David L. Boren Fellow, National Security Education Program; and Fulbright Scholar, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Research Interests
Development
Comparative Political Institutions
Asian Politics
Non-Democratic Regimes
Industrial Policy
Politics Of Globalization
Comparative Political Economy
Economic-Security Nexus
Economic Statecraft
States And Markets
US-China Trade War
BRICS
Countries of Interest
China
India
Russia
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Scholarship on the institutional foundations of Chinese‐style capitalism emphasizes the impact of liberal reformers and China's participation in international organizations, devolution of economic decision making and local experimentation, and the proliferation of market actors to explain their origins. This article investigates distinct patterns of sectoral variation in market governance in China today, examining the extent and scope in which dominant forms of market coordination and distribution of property rights reflect variation in national goals of economic power, security, and growth; structural sectoral attributes; and the path‐dependent effects of institutional arrangements. The reinforcement of state coordination and the dominance of state ownership and shareholding in strategic industries, such as telecommunications, and the relinquishment of state control and the dominance of market stakeholders in nonstrategic sectors, such as textiles, characterize the rise of bifurcated capitalism in the period before and after China's accession to the World Trade Organization.
Scholars debate whether states or markets drive economic policy in the context of internationalization. Unpacking the market–state dichotomy, liberal pluralists and institutionalists alike conduct sectoral analysis to examine economic policies and outcomes. They debate the relative importance of sectors versus factors and the impact of sectoral coalitions, structural characteristics, and institutional trajectories. Building on previous scholarship, this article argues that state imperatives, such as national security and technological advancement, are an important guide to understanding dominant patterns of economic policy, defined as state goals, government–business relations, and state methods. Beyond that, the organization of institutions and structural sectoral attributes influence the ways in which actual policy outcomes vary across sectors and time. Case studies of the liberalization and subsequent reregulation of foreign direct investment across subsectors of telecommunications in China substantiate this argument. Evidence from other industries further validates this explanatory model.
In recent years, China and India have extensively liberalized their economies. They have departed from the East Asian developmental states, which have restricted foreign direct investment (FDI) to protect domestic industry, and the liberal FDI strategy of Latin America during a similar stage of development as they have eschewed dependent development. Instead, they have taken a “liberalization two-step,” which follows liberalization with reregulation that varies across industrial sectors. Country and sectoral case studies demonstrate the perceived strategic value of a sector, sectoral characteristics, and the organization of state institutions shape the ways in which reregulation varies. Insulated from political pressures, the Chinese state shifts from universal controls on the aggregate level to selective controls at the sectoral level and adopts a bifurcated strategy in its reregulation. In India, the government liberalizes FDI according to state goals but reregulates as a function of sectoral interests arising from the legacy of its postindependence economic strategy.
Books Written:
Today's China is governed by a new economic model that marks a radical break from the Mao and Deng eras; it departs fundamentally from both the East Asian developmental state and its own Communist past. It has not, however, adopted a liberal economic model. China has retained elements of statist control even though it has liberalized foreign direct investment more than any other developing country in recent years. This mode of global economic integration reveals much about China’s state capacity and development strategy, which is based on retaining government control over critical sectors while meeting commitments made to the World Trade Organization. In China's Regulatory State, Roselyn Hsueh demonstrates that China only appears to be a more liberal state; even as it introduces competition and devolves economic decisionmaking, the state has selectively imposed new regulations at the sectoral level, asserting and even tightening control over industry and market development, to achieve state goals. By investigating in depth how China implemented its economic policies since the Open Door Policy in 1978, Hsueh gives the most complete picture yet of China's regulatory state, particularly as it has shaped the telecommunications and textiles industries. Hsueh contends that a logic of strategic value explains how the state, with its different levels of authority and maze of bureaucracies, interacts with new economic stakeholders to enhance its control in certain economic sectors while relinquishing control in others. Sectoral characteristics determine policy specifics although the organization of institutions and boom-bust cycles influence how the state reformulates old rules and creates new ones to maximize benefits and minimize costs after an initial phase of liberalization. This pathbreaking analysis of state goals, government-business relations, and methods of governance across industries in China also considers Japan’s, South Korea’s, and Taiwan’s manifestly different approaches to globalization.
Media Appearances:
TV Appearances:
Interviewed by BBC Worlds News for segment on Chinese takeovers/ investment around the world during the coronavirus pandemic.
Blog Posts:
Penned The Washington Post The Monkey Cage analysis, "Three things that the trade war with China won’t change," on how China’s regulatory state has systematically re-regulated sector by sector, creating a complex interdependence the Trade War will not easily resolve.
A ChinaFile Conversation, "Is the Trade War Hurting Xi Jinping Politically?", Asia Society, in partnership with Foreign Policy and The New York Times Review of Books.
Penned The Washington Post The Monkey Cage analysis, "Why is China suddenly leading the climate change effort? It’s a business decision." (June 23, 2017)
Penned The Washington Post The Monkey Cage analysis, "Taiwan kicked out its ruling party for getting too close to mainland China. Here’s what comes next." (February 1, 2016).