Professor Chun Lin

Professor Chun Lin

Professor in Comparative Politics

Department of Government

Room No
CBG 4.20
Office Hours
Currently on leave
Languages
English
Key Expertise
Chinese Politics, Asian Politics, Historical Sociology, Communism

About me

Lin Chun received a doctorate from Cambridge in History and Political Science, having previously worked in China’s reform think tanks. Before and after joining the LSE she held teaching/research positions at several US universities and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. She is on the Executive Committee of China Quarterly and editorial collective of The Socialist Register, and co-edits Palgrave's book series China in Transformation. She is the author of The British New Left (1993), The Transformation of Chinese Socialism (2006), Reflections on China’s Reform Trajectory (2008, in Chinese), China and Global Capitalism (2013), and Revolution and Counterrevolution in China (2021). She is also the editor of China I, II and III (2000) and co-editor of Is Mao Really a Monster? (2009) and Women: The Longest Revolution (1997, in Chinese). Her articles appear in various journals and languages. Her most recent essay is Red Finance: The wartime communist market experience in China (2023), published by Phenomenal World.

Books

Research interests

  • Modern Chinese and Asian politics, culture and political economy
  • Historical sociology and comparative developments
  • Communist and postcommunist studies
  • Critical social theory: Marxism, democracy, feminism, basic income and the future of work

Teaching responsibilities

  • GV245: Democracy and Democratisation
  • GV248: Power and Politics in the Modern World
  • GV427: Democracy in South and East Asia
  • GV432: Government and Politics in China

Selected publications

Books

Revolution and Counterrevolution in China, (Verso, 2021)

China and Global Capitalism: Reflections on Marxism, History, and Contemporary Politics, Palgrave, 2013 (paperback 2016)
(Spanish translation China y el Capitalismo Global, El Viejo Topo, 2015)

Gregor Benton and Lin Chun, eds. Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Mao: The Unknown Story, Routledge, 2009

The Transformation of Chinese Socialism, Duke University Press, 2006; 2nd print 2007 (Spanish translation: Spanish translation: La Transformacion del Socialismo Chino, Barcelona: El Viejo Topo, 2008)

The British New Left, Edinburgh University Press, 1993 (Japanese translation: Tokyo: Sairyusha, 1999)

Reflections on China’s Reform Trajectory, Beijing: Social Science Academic Publisher, 2008 (in Chinese)

Edited anthologies, Ashgate 2000:

  • China I: Modernizing Chinese Polity
  • China II: The Transformation of Chinese Socialism
  • China III: Defining a Changing China in Global Politics

Was Mao Really a Monster? The Academic Response to Mao: The Unknown Story (eds. with Gregor Benton), Routledge, 2009

Women: The Longest Revolution (eds. with Li and Tan), Beijing: Sanlian Publishing House, 1997 (in Chinese)

Book chapters

Gao Mobo and Lin Chun, 'In Lieu of an Introduction', in Yang Songlin, Telling the Truth: China's GLF, Household Registration and the Famine Death Tally, Palgrave 2021, pp.vii-xxxii

“Asia and the shift in Marx’s conception of revolution and history”, in Matt Vidal et al. eds. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx, Oxford University Press, 2019

Articles

"Red Finance: The wartime communitst market experience in China", Phenominal World, 2023

“China’s new globalism”, Socialist Register 2019 (SR vol. 55)

"The lost international in the transformation of Chinese socialism", in Vijay Prashad, ed. Communist Histories, Vol. I, LeftWord Books, 2016, pp.267-315

“The language of class in China”, Socialist Register 2015, London: Merlin pp. 24-53

"Toward a new moral economy: the land question revisited”, in Darwis Khudori, ed. Bandung at 60: New Insights and Emerging Forces, Pustako Pelajar, 2015, pp. 261-86

“Modernity and the violence of global accumulation: the case of ethnic question in China”, in Breno Bringel and Mauricio Domingues, eds. Contestations of Global Modernity, London: Sage, 2015, pp. 51-70 

“Rethinking land reform: comparative lessons from China and India”, forthcoming in Mahmood Mamdani, ed. Peasants and Pastoralists in the Marketplace: Perspectives from Africa and Asia, 2015, pp. 95-157 

 "An argument for 'participatory socialism'", in Cao and Zhong, eds, Culture and Transformation: Theoretical Framework and Chinese Context, Brill, 2014, pp. 333-54  

“Marxism and the politics of positioning China in world history”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 13:3, 2012, pp. 438-66 

“Socialist China model or capitalism with Chinese characteristics?”, Hong Kong: Sunny Research Advance, 2011-28, April 2011, pp. 1-14 

“The Chinese revolution and the modern Chinese identity” and “comments on MacFarquhar and Gong”, in Cao, et al. eds. Culture and Social Transformation in Reform Era China, Brill, 2010, pp. 359-74   

“The socialist market economy: step forward or backward for China?” Science & Society, 73:2, April 2009, pp. 228-35  

“Challenging privatization: a conceptual and theoretical argument”, Journal of Chinese Political Science, 14:1, 2009, pp. 21-48

“Against privatization in China: a historical and empirical argument”, Journal of Chinese Political Science, 13:1, 2008, pp. 1-27 

"China: changing the rules of the game”, Soundings 39:1, 2008: 7-19