Faculty

Mark W. Frazier is Professor of Politics at The New School, where he also serves as Co-Director of the India China Institute. (Click here for CV)

His research interests focus on labor and social policy in China, and more recently on political conflict over urbanization, migration, and citizenship in China and India. His latest book, The Power of Place: Contentious Politics in Twentieth Century Shanghai and Bombay (Cambridge University Press, 2019), examines long-term changes in political geographies and patterns of popular protest in the two cities. He is also the author of Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China (Cornell University Press, 2010), The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace (Cambridge University Press, 2002), and Co-Editor of the SAGE Handbook of Contemporary China (2018). He has authored op-ed pieces and essays for The New York Times, Daedalus, and The Diplomat.

Frazier has been a fellow in the Public Intellectuals Program of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations since 2005, and was a Fulbright Research Fellow in China in 2004-05. Before assuming his current position at The New School in 2012, he held a chaired professorship in Chinese Politics at the University of Oklahoma and was the Luce Assistant Professor in the Political Economy of East Asia at Lawrence University, a liberal arts college in Wisconsin.

PhD 1997, University of California, Berkeley

Books

The Power of Place: Contentious Politics in Twentieth Century Shanghai and Bombay (Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Socialist Insecurity: Pensions and the Politics of Uneven Development in China (Cornell University Press, 2010).  

The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

“‘Single Sparks’ and Legacies: An Eventful Account of the May Fourth Movement,” China Quarterly (published September 2022).    “The Challenges of China-India Comparative Urban Studies,” International Journal of Asian Studies 19 (July 2022): 319-332.   “Hong Kong’s Civic Square: A Short History of a Public Space,” in Public Space in a Chinese Megaregion, Miodrag Mitrašinovic and Timothy Jachna, eds. Routledge, 2021.   “The Political Heritage of Textile Districts: Shanghai and Mumbai,” Built Heritage 3 (2019): 62-75.

“The Origins of State Capacity: Workers and Officials in Mid-20th Century Shanghai and Bombay,” in Beyond Regimes: China and India Compared, Prasenjit Duara and Elizabeth J. Perry, eds. Harvard University Press, 2018, pp. 31-61.

"Stemming the Tide of Demographic Transformation Through Social Inclusion: Can Universal Pension Rights Help Finance an Ageing Population," with Y Li., in Beatriz Carrillo et. al. (ed.), Handbook of Welfare in China, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017.

"The Evolution of a Welfare State under China's State Capitalism" in State Capitalism, Institutional Adaptation, and the Chinese Miracle, Barry Naughton ed., Cambridge University Press, 2015.

"State Schemes or Safety Nets? China's Push for Universal Coverage," Daedalus Vol. 143(2), 2014.

“Welfare Policy Pathways Among Uneven Developers,” in Beyond the Middle Kingdom: Comparative Perspectives on China’s Capitalist Transformation, Scott Kennedy, ed., Stanford University Press, 2011.

“Popular Responses to China’s Emerging Welfare State,” in Chinese Politics: State, Society, and the Market, Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen, eds., Routledge Courzon, 2010.

Media

"The Empire Strikes Back," Public Seminar (May 28, 2020)

"Hong Kong Under Lockdown," Public Seminar (April 28, 2020)

"Hong Kong’s Protests Looked a Lot Like Shanghai Anti-colonial Protests a Century Ago," Washington Post (April 14, 2020)