Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives

About the authors

Stephen Kalberg is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Boston University and Local Affiliate of the Center for European Studies, Harvard University, USA. He is the author of Max Weber’s Sociology of Civilizations; Max Weber’s Comparative-Historical Sociology; The Social Thought of Max Weber; Searching for the Spirit of American Democracy: Max Weber’s Analysis of a Unique Political Culture; and Max Weber’s Comparative-Historical Sociology Today. He is also the editor of Max Weber: Readings and Commentary on Modernity, co-editor (with Said Arjomand) of From World Religions to Axial Civilizations and Beyond; and the translator of Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West.

Robin Cohen was born in South Africa and has lived in Nigeria, Trinidad and the UK, where he is Emeritus Professor of Development Studies at the University of Oxford and Senior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, Life Fellow at Global China Academy. His initial work on labour movements in Africa, was followed by research on the sociology and politics of developing areas, social identity, migration, transnationalism and globalization. He is best known for being one of a small group of scholars who revived the ancient notion of diaspora in the 1990s and gave it fresh conceptual purchase. His books include Global Diasporas: An Introduction (2007); Global Sociology (with Paul Kennedy, 2013), Encountering Difference (with Olivia Sheringham, 2016) and Migration: The Movement of Humankind from Prehistory to the Present (2019). With Nicholas Van Hear, he has developed a utopian solution to mass displacement titled, Refugia: Solving the Problem of Mass Displacement (2020).

Boyi Li is a Fellow in the Information Systems and Innovation Group. He is interested in ICTs for global development. He works on the relational approach to social innovation, and empirically studies the movements of creative economy and sustainable practices in developing context. Dr. Li currently teaches the theoretical foundations of information systems, Innovating Organisational IT, and Research Design for the MISDI programme. He is a member of Global China Academy Council.

Yan Wu is an Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies, Swansea University. Her research interests focus on the social impacts of digital media and communication in China and digital inclusivity for sensory impaired users. Her publications appear in journals such as New Media and Society; Global Media and China; International Journal of Digital Television, Modern Communication and as book chapters in Media and Public Sphere (Palgrave Macmillan 2007), Climate Change and Mass Media (Peter Lang 2008), Migration and the Media (Peter Lang 2012), and Public Diplomacy and the Politics of Uncertainty (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). She is a member of Global China Academy Council.

Jack Barbalet is an Executive Editor of the Journal of China in Global and Comparative Perspectives and Professor of Sociology in the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. His research interests are currently focused on sociological theory, political sociology, and the sociology of modern China. His publications include Confucianism and the Chinese Self: Re-examining Max Weber’s China (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and The Theory of Guanxi and Chinese Society (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Martin Albrow FAcSS is founding and past Honorary President of the Global China Academy (2012-2021), UK; Emeritus Professor at the University of Wales in 1989 and has held senior visiting positions at various institutions across the world. He is a former President of the British Sociological Association and founding editor of the jounal International Sociology. His book The Global Age: State and Society beyond Modernity (1996) won the European Amalfi Prize in 1997. Other books include Bureaucracy (1970), Max Weber’s Construction of Social Theory (1990), Globalization, Knowledge and Society (1990, ed. with E. King), the first book with the keyword ‘globalization’ in the title (book reviewed by Roland Robertson, Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 21, No. 1, Jan. 1992), Do Organizations Have Feelings? (1997), Global Age Essays on Social and Cultural Change (2014) and China’s Role in a Shared Human Future: Towards Theory for Global Leadership (2018).